


To Begin Again

by cocotiks



Category: Nightwing (Comics), Titans (TV 2018), Titans - Fandom
Genre: Angst, DC Nightwing, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Nightwing - Freeform, Romance, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-01-21 04:43:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21293765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocotiks/pseuds/cocotiks
Summary: Dr Elle Storm keeps to herself, she's a medical examiner at the Detroit Police by day, and deals with asshole cops like Detective Dick Grayson. She's unpopular, a square, a bit of a neat freak. Deep down, she's dealing with rubbing out the stains of her family's sins as mad scientists who worked for terrorists, and dealing with her own sins as she becomes the go-to black-market doctor for one of the city's most notorious crime families: The Giacarlones.At night she's summoned to fix a thug's broken leg, 'Do no harm' they told her, and that's what she tried to do, to survive. But after meeting the latest vigilante-Nightwing-who's chosen to make Detroit his new battle ground, Elle has to question her place in this city, in this life, whether she can ever move forward from what her parents did as her own person, and even call herself...a hero.
Relationships: Angst - Relationship, Dick Grayson & Original Female Character(s), Dick Grayson-Nightwing, Dick Grayson/Original Female Character(s), Inspired by young justice Dick Grayson, Less gloomy Dick Grayson, less brooding Dick Grayson, nightwing - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks everyone for reading my story! The fandom is still relatively fresh. A lot of characters in this are OC and I have never read the comics but know what I do about the Titans from the animated movies/TV shows, the current DC universe show and Young Justice. The Dick Grayson in this is from the current DC universe TV show. It's set after he's established himself as Nightwing for a few years and decides to return to Detroit after the Titans break up-again. There's alternate backstory that we'll get to.

* * *

**ELLE **

Elle Storm told herself the same thing every time she came to this side of town; that she had to be a good person, a good doctor, to be helping these kinds of people. The Giacarlones’ were a notable family, wealthy, loyal to their own, nice....if you ignored the drug trafficking and racketeering mafia crime syndicate they’d built in Detroit.

Elle knocked on the door of the neatly manicured garden of their mansion, a huge, gaudy spectacle of architecture; it was hard to miss in this uptown neighborhood.

She received the usual gruff reply on the other end.

“It’s me,” she said, turning her head left and right, to be certain no one was following her, it was broad daylight and the coast was clear. No one else ever used this door. Elle tried her best to cover her tracks, but she was never sure she was safe; she wasn’t the built for this sort of thing. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t been arrested for it yet.

“Doctor,” the entrance opened and a tall, slim, Italian man with pale blonde hair stood in the doorway.

“Hello Roberto,” she greeted, gesturing at his arm. “I see you’re shoulder is doing well, the spat with Nightwing didn’t slow you down.”

The butler silently checked his watch, which possibly cost about three months of her salary, and lifted his pale blue eyes back to her. “You’re late. You’re never late,” he remarked stoically. She was not under impression he was a mere butler, this man could be lethal— _unless the job requirements for butler now involve carrying a .22 glock in your jacket. _She was surprised he hadn’t killed Detroit’s newest vigilante with it, yet. 

“I was not late, the train was late,” she said, tightening her hold on her briefcase. She just wanted to get in and out as fast as possible while she could still tolerate the way this place made her skin crawl.

“The Don’s upstairs with his mother.”

The room they kept his mother in was bright, with French windows, lux sea-green curtains and a queen-sized bed with silk bedding where she currently laid. They remodelled the entire room to look like their old home before the move, to give her familiar surroundings. The Don was a man in his mid-50s, never said more than a sentence to her or less, unless he completely had to. She didn’t mind that—Roberto recruited her and was her main contact anyway.

Although today was slightly different;.

The Don sat on his mother's bedside, hands cupped, with a deep frown. “She doesn’t remember her granddaughter,” the Don said solemnly as Elle did a vital signs check on his mother. The Don’s daughter’s was possibly his only saving grace, and also partly the reason why Elle didn't mind too much to come here. 

“Do you have a book you could let me read, dear? Oh I love my books,” his mother said soft and croaky, as Elle took the BP cuff off her arm. Don’s mother would barely say anything else besides that. She couldn't read a thing anyway. Her eyes were watery, grey and blind.

_She’s approaching end-stage of her Alzheimer’s, it’s expected. _She told him this as gently as she could, and he snickered coldly;

“She had such a beautiful mind. One day, I will forget too.”

“And your daughter, Don?” She asked, carefully. “How is Miss Dahlia?”

“They have started the treatment for her. She is at the centre now.”

If she could stop the 10 year old girl from having cancer she would. It was a difficult time for the entire family now. It was a shame she didn’t get to see her today.

“I’m glad,” she replied stiffly.

Afterwards she was dismissed, and she was glad for it. Elle had to rush home and drive to town for her real day job at the police station.

That was her typical visit to their home. However being on the beck and call of the Giacarlones as their doctor also included patching up their thugs and occasionally setting a dislocated shoulder. Nevertheless, the Giacarlones ‘took care’ of the people who cared for their own—not that they gave her choice in the matter—and paid her generously as an incentive to come back and most importantly; stay quiet. The consequences of not doing so; she had no plans on finding out.

Her lab tech; Danny, texted her regarding three new bodies at the morgue to be examined today, including plenty of emoji’s of biceps and thumb’s up at the end of the message to motivate himself more than her. She wondered why out of the entire pool of lab techs available for the medical examiners, she got the one that corresponded like a 15 year old.

Elle signalled for a parking spot, at that moment a fancy sports car drove in from the other entrance and stole it. She hit the brakes and cursed under her breathe. Detective Dick Grayson hopped out of the driver seat and didn’t even acknowledge that she was in the other car. She glared at him as he jogged off in a hurry inside.

...

Later that day, sat outside for lunch with Danny, the person she hung out with most on a day-to-day basis. He ate his sandwich sloppily, she wanted to look away but at the same time was fascinated by how someone could fit half a sandwich into their mouth in one bite and still hold an semi-articulate conversation; “mmhm adding extra pickles really hits the spot with this BLT, it’s great.”

She handed him a napkin when a bit of mayo dropped onto his chin.

“Oh thanks.” He wiped it off.

His entire meal looked unappetizing. “Maybe try to eat with your mouth closed, next time.”

He swallowed his bite and somehow didn’t choke on it; “sorry,” he replied sheepishly. Elle finished off her pasta stacked her lunchbox back up neatly. 

“Ever consider the smell of the bodies makes you hungrier?” Danny mused on their way back to the morgue. Danny could jump from topic to topic, sometimes without Elle uttering a single word in response. She preferred it that way 95% of the time. He often complained that whatever she had to say could bore him senseless, otherwise.

“You’re not the first person to say that,” she remarked.

She spotted a couple of her colleagues-other medical examiners-eating and laughing inside the break room, a clique she had never been apart of. Except this time, one of them, Lila, called her name and hurried to catch up with her. She had most people in the precinct figured out-but this took her off caught guard.

“Elle!” She greeted enthusiastically even jumping up to give her a hug, that made her balance unsteady. She wasn’t a huge fan of physical displays of affection or whatever the heck this was meant to be, but she took it in stride. Once she was free from the hug, Lila gave her wide-eyed smile. “How are you?”

“I’m- I’m alright,” she stammered, taken aback by the surge of affection for her when she was practically invisible unless they were dissecting bodies.

“I was wondering if you could do me a favour,” said Lila.

“Um, sure, what is it?”

“We’re organizing a surprise birthday party for James tonight at the Fraser’s. it's the big 30!" 

“Oh okay,” she replied, flabbergasted as to why they were suddenly inviting her out of nowhere. “Sounds f-“

“We all need to be there before 8, sooo do you mind taking my on call shift tonight?” She scrunched her face up pleading innocently. “I’ll make it up to you and take one of your shifts next week.”

“Oh... yeah sure that’s no problem, no problem at all.”

“Thanks you’re the best!” Lila squeezed her in a unnecessary hug again and then spun back towards the break room, her bright yellow skirt twirling behind her, leaving Elle speechless, and a little confused. She rejoined Danny who had been observing the exchange, with a look of pity;

“Yikes that was really painful to watch, boss.”

“What was?”

“They didn’t want to invite you to James’ birthday party.”

“Oh,” her mind only caught up to the rejection late. Admittedly she did feel a bit of a sting but she didn’t blame them for it, she hardly knew them.

“They didn’t invite you either," she pointed out lamely. 

“Us lab techs have our own little crew and all of you doctors are way older than us and high strung. Besides I have a date tonight,” he said proudly.

“I am not high strung,” she argued. She was only a handful of years older than Danny but not ancient.

“You pack lunches in bento boxes,” he said, pointing at hers she carried, kept in a neat matching bag. “Literally at the post office yesterday you made everyone get in numerical order and in single file at the Returns aisle.”

“It was to speed up the process,” she vehemently argued. “Many systems could be more efficient if people just took the time to get themselves organised. It’s shown to increase productivity by 63%, and—“

“There’s a paper on it-“

“There’s a paper on it.” He said simultaneously, with a smug grin.

Elle returned his quip with a deadpan look and strode faster to the morgue.

Once in the corner office they set their things down and grabbed their scrubs gowns from their hooks in the sterile zone. She slipped on shoe covers and donned her surgical cap.

“Ah I think Ron ordered the wrong gloves,” he lifted the box of sterile surgical gloves, a type they were not accustomed to using. “When you did Surgery you used these right?” He asked.

Elle blinked at him, uneasy around the topic. “Uh—“

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—um, that was careless,” he shook his head apologetically and set the box down. “I can be an airhead.”

“It’s alright Danny, yeah that’s right, but since he ordered a whole stock of it, we should use them anyway,” she replied, brushing it off. He was still new and she forgave him for not knowing what was taboo to ask her; like when a patient died under her knife in Surgery and she transferred to forensics. Nowadays it just made her tummy uncomfortable, like when you ate expired food, but it didn’t send her into a depressive spiral. It was years ago anyway, before she specialised in legal medicine. 

She was telling Danny about the funeral home that needed two of the bodies ASAP when his eyes trailed to the observation windows across the room. 

“Look who it is.”

Elle followed his gaze to the entrance on the other side of the glass. _They choose _now_ to show up? After the effort of putting all this medical attire on like two huge blue smurfs?_

Detective Grayson approached the glass and Elle tried to wave him off to come back later. It startled her when he knocked on the glass with that impatient persistent knock. _Does he think he owns this place? _Danny helped her untie her scrubs gown; careful not to hit the sleek low bun at the nape of her neck because she’d complained when he’d wrecked it before.

“Detective Grayson.” Elle said, mustering politeness as she met him. They usually called in before they came down, the fact he didn’t- gave a clue this was not going to be a cordial interaction.

He frowned at her, puzzled; “Are you new? Have we met?”

_Besides stealing my parking spot? _She was relatively new, but not _that _new.

“I’ve worked on your cases, but we’ve never spoken, I only recently—“

“You changed your report,” he slapped it on the counter, interrupting her. “It ruined my case.”

She skimmed over the record number; she remembered clearly she hadn’t altered anything since she submitted it.

“I didn’t change the report.”

“Something wrong with your memory, Doc?” He accused, and Elle took affront to that. _First the parking spot, now this? _

She threw a sidelong glance at Danny and saw him nervously biting his nail and immediately knew what happened. She swallowed her pride to apologise;

“Right, it was an error,” she told him, lying through her teeth. “Sorry, I took a half day and it slipped-“

“It_ slipped?”_ He shook his head, agitated, clearly at the end of a line. “I can’t believe this. Our John Doe was _murdered _by the Maroni’s it’s not going to look good for the DA if our M.E. can’t get her facts straight, this is basic procedure, Doc, come on.”

His accusations were perfectly valid, the report was wrong; it would’ve been a mess for the prosecution. But Elle had learnt from years of training in medical school, intern, fellowship, to stare confrontation and a heavy critic in the face and not to let the anger or hurt slip.

“I’m sorry,” she replied robotically. “I will fix this.”

“This better not happen again.” He turned on his heel and stalked out without another word. Finally with the situation diffused she whipped her head to Danny, before he could make an excuse she shushed him.

“I fired my last tech who mishandled my reports. Please never change a report without clearing it with me first,” she said sternly.

“Got it,” he said red in the face. “Sorry boss and thanks, I really appreciate you looking out for me,” he apologized, earnestly. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

...

It was Friday night, as the evening wore on Elle settled herself onto her couch in her shorts and camisole PJs to read and watch TV. She checked her phone and it was empty of notifications, _no one misses me. _She lied on her side and stared at a picture of her family on the wall over the mantle, a relic of the house when they were all alive together, before they died. In the picture; her mother, her father, her eldest sister, and her, wore matching colours of light blue and white, with toothy smiles to match.

_Strange to think we had the audacity to pretend to be a happy family. _

She fell into a dreamless sleep after reading and was startled awake at the sound of pounding on the door.

The lights were still on in her living room, groggily she tried to recall what day it was and then it occurred to her that she was meant to be on call. She checked her phone. Four missed calls. _OH MY GOD. _Then a text from an unknown number saying there was a case and they were outside to pick her up. Her phone had been silent. She leapt off the couch.

The pounding on the door continued. Ella threw on a cardigan and rushed out, barefoot, into the cold dim hallway.

_“Doctor Storm, hello? Are you home?”_

Elle swung the door open.

Detective Grayson had his fist poised for another knock. “Finally,” he huffed in exasperation. She was not pleased to see him again, but she was in the wrong here for making him drive all the way out to the suburbs to get her.

“Detective Grayson, oh my God, I’m so sorry I-my phone-it was—”

“Alright, it’s alright,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, he quickly scanned her from head to toe and she felt the heat rise to her cheeks. She never got unexpected work-company this late at night.

“Just get dressed we need you at the crime scene.”

“Okay, give me two minutes, um come inside,” she offered rather than let him stand in the cold. Elle speed walked to her bedroom and opened her clothing drawers. She hooked on her bra and slipped into trousers and a sweater. As usual she felt the urge to clean her piles of clothes and make her bed before leaving the house but they were pressed for time.

_Come on Ellie someone died, you can tidy up later, _she berated herself.

“Sorry for the loud knocking,” called the detective from the hallway. “Hope you don’t get in trouble with your roommates.”

“I live alone,” she replied to him, on the other side of the door and then opened it. She got that assumption a lot given the size of her home. “I inherited the place.” It was the only thing she had left behind from her family, which the government let her keep out of pity, after they seized her parents property and assets. 

“Oh, convenient,” he remarked, as she swung her jacket on.

On the walk to his car, she had the urge to explain herself, talking at the speed of light; “Grayson, I don’t normally put my phone on silent by the way, especially on call…I- I know the responsibility I have to the public to be available whenever I’m needed for cases. It’s just that tonight I didn’t expect to be on call and so it’s really just a-”

“Don’t worry about it,” he cut her off, and she couldn’t help but feel she was annoying him. “I was surprised to see that you were on the list, isn’t it Dr. Lila’s turn this weekend?”

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, a habit she had when she was nervous in general, but in this instance he made her nervous because she’d made a bad impression as a negligent medical examiner. She didn’t want to mess it up, being new to the higher position. “Yes, but she asked me to fill in for her.”

They reached Graysons’ sleek sports car. She may not be an expert in automobiles but she knew money when she saw it. _No way he buys this on a detective’s salary, unless the wage gap between women and men is wider than I thought._

“All the ME’s are having a party at Fraser’s. I tried to find you there.”

“Yeah,” she shrugged indifferently, as they got into his car. “I’m not close to them.”

“You’ve been working there for almost two years,” he pointed out, starting the engine.

_Oh, now he remembers who I am. _“Well we just don’t click.”

Elle thanked every God there was he didn’t ask more questions about her lack of social life. Instead they briefly discussed the case. She felt her mind sharpening as they parked the car and walked towards the outer perimeter of police tape.

The victim’s body was found wrapped neatly in an unmarked grave near the woodland area of the park, dead for around three days. Fully clothed, blunt force trauma was the running cause of death, but the cut on the back of his head looked too clean.

“He didn’t die here,” noted Grayson, as Elle directed the forensics team to do the standard procedure of collecting evidence samples.

“My guess is no,” she remarked. “Danny, you have a pair tweezers?”

“Here you go, Doc.”

She slipped out a nametag from his blazer pocket. “A connection to Mercury Labs,” she said and deposited the evidence into a collection bag Danny opened up for her. “It’s a visitor’s pass, but they do schools trips all the time, and science fairs for local high schools.”

Elle peered at Grayson but he was rifling through the other pockets.

“Use a pair of tweezers for crying out loud,” she admonished. He ignored her completely. _Why are cops so goddamn frustrating sometimes? _

...

On Monday morning she was inputting her autopsy findings into the system, she wanted to get reports from the weekend finished to move onto the next set of cadavers to dissect in the afternoon, or else the work would backlog. She was _trying _to focus if Danny wasn’t doing everything in his power to distract her. 

“Are we really going to continue discussing this?” She sighed exasperated as they went around again on the topic of one of the city’s previous vigilantes; Robin.

“I swear boss, this Robin isn’t the same person as Nightwing,” insisted Danny wagging his pen at her. “Robin came here to Detroit and then he left back to Gotham, or San Francisco? I don’t know.”

He probably did know but was trying not to geek out too much around her.

In stepped Det. Grayson to the morgue— her least favorite detective at the moment, joined by his partner Mitchel.

Danny had a higher threshold for pricks than she did, and he waved at them enthusiastically. “Ah here we go! A second opinion—Detectives; Dr. Storm and I were having a discussion about our local heroes.”

“You mean vigilantes,” she corrected immediately she didn’t want Danny to get any idea of them being more than that. Elle caught Grayson’s eyes on her and she looked down at her keyboard self-consciously.

“Yeah whatever,” said Danny, happy to have more ears to listen to him. “My _correct_ theory is that Robin went back to work in Gotham city but his work here inspired another to take his place aka Nightwing, boom!” He dropped his pen as if what he had to say was some groundbreaking revelation.

“Ridiculous name,” she muttered under her breath.

“You think so?”

She looked up to Grayson and he had his brow raised at her.

She adjusted her glasses, “they’re all ridiculous. Now what autopsy did you—”

“Hold on, hold on,” Danny interrupted her, and held his hand out to Mitchel. “Mitch, what say you?”

He held his chin in thought and then nodded. “I agree with Danny, it does make sense, you get one, and other crazies start to get ideas trying to do the same thing.” Grayson gave him a withering look and Elle wondered if Mitchel knew how much Grayson loathed his existence, and the idea of being tied down to a partner— but she didn’t want to ruin everyone’s Monday by being a bitch.

“And what’s your theory doc?” Grayson asked her folding his arms, genuinely curious about it.

“Robin and Nightwing are the same person,” she said, quite confident in that.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because they have the same shoulder injury.”

She thought that would be the end of it until he went; “How are you sure of that?”

“From the footage.”

“Oh don’t get her started Grayson,” Danny jumped in. “Dr Storm doesn’t like to admit it but she’s competitive, she loves to prove that she’s right.”

“Because I am."

“Enlighten me then, let’s see this footage,” said Dick, not letting it go.

She brought up the footage for him. “See. here and here, the exact drop on the shoulder, this guy isn’t ambidextrous but he’s been forced to use most of his left hand to make his punches see?” They watched the figures in black and white on the screen. “It looks awkward,” she surmised. “He thinks he’s fooled us, but he hasn’t.”

She turned her head and Grayson was leaning next to her, one hand on the desk the other on the back of her chair. He looked peered down at her, eyebrows furrowed.

“What?” She asked him, feeling herself get flustered and nervous after voicing her opinion.

“Nothing,” he gave a small shake of his head. “I think your theory is correct.”

“Really?” She said, surprised he agreed with her and wasn’t being annoying about it;

“75% correct,” he added to her dismay, and pointed at the screen for her to follow; “it’s not his shoulder that was injured it was his ankle, you only think it’s the shoulder because of the angle of the footage, you can’t see that he favors his left because of his right ankle not being stable enough. Look closely.” He bent his head down until it was right besides hers. She stared at the screen long, yet couldn’t see what he was trying to show her in the low-quality footage.

She gave him a sidelong glance, on full defense-mode. “Well—no, perhaps, but you can’t just get that from a video—

“Ohhhh, Doc, you were wrong!” Teased Danny. “You—”

She glared at him he ate his words and stayed quiet. Elle closed the tabs, standing up, at the same time Grayson straightened and their gazes locked.

“If we’re done analyzing this irrelevant piece of footage, we should get back to work,” she told him firmly.

“I guess I’ll pick up that report now, if you have it ready for me,” he said coolly, with a know-it-all smirk. She refrained from scowling at him and got up to find it.

This guy didn’t know she existed until three days ago and suddenly became the biggest pain in her ass.

...

“Dr. Storm,” a voice called out to her as she walked into the lobby.

“Yes?” Elle turned to the seats near the entrance.

A well-dressed, young blonde girl got up and extended her hand to her. “Morgan Hawthorne from the Star City Times,” she greeted with a cheery smile.

Elle cringed inside. “If this is about the case from the weekend I’m not authorized to speak on it—”

“Are the reports that he worked for Mercury Labs, true?” She interrupted her.

_A persistent one._ “Like I said—”

“I know. Your parents worked there too? Is that correct?” Morgan’s tone changed, it was bordering antagonistic.

Elle tried not to get wound up over it. “This isn’t about my parents—” she began and realized that Morgan was not who she said she was, “you’re not a reporter, are you?”

Morgan stepped closer to her and Elle swallowed nervously. “They were caught selling technology to war criminals and terrorist organizations,” she snarled at her “genetically enhanced biological warfare that killed—”

“Morgan, I understand you’re grief,” she held her hands out to her, genuinely sorry for what happened, but there was nothing she could do, “but I think you should leave, this—”

“Where are the reparations for the people we lost?” She shrieked abruptly, startling her and Elle clutched her chest, stammering for something to say. “Where is the justice?” At that point two officers had yanked Morgan away and started dragging her out. “The government gives you a cushy job and we get nothing—?! We—!”

Her protests were muffled as the front door closed on her. Elle spun around holding onto the wall, breathing hard with the panic that swelled up into her throat.

That was the third time that had happened in the last 6 months. It was a huge improvement from how the public reacted when the news first broke of her family’s crimes. She had gotten phone calls to her house phone, mailed death threats, strangers coming up to her in cafes screaming and spitting at her—

“Dr. Storm? Doctor?”

Elle jumped up at the voice, thinking it was Morgan back for another round. It was only Detective Grayson.

“You with us?” He asked her, his forehead furrowed with concern. “Are you alright?”

She breathed out deeply. “Yes. Thank you.”

“What she said, your parents were—“

“Yes. Yes it was them, you heard correctly,” she cut him off, knowing exactly what he was about to say, because that was everyone’s goddamn reaction when they found out. “They were bad people. Okay?” She gritted out, her frustrations getting the best of her. “Satisfied?”

His eyes widened. “Well I—”

“Excuse me.” She stalked off, fists clenched at her side. No one cared that she was never involved in the first place; she was paying the price for their sins even now.

...

Later that night, Elle shot up in bed awake at the sound of her ringtone blaring through her dark bedroom. She blinked at her digital alarm on the bed stand. It was 2am in the morning. The jolt of the alarm and the rapid beating of her heart unsettled her, but even more when she realized the ringtone was what she had set for whenever Roberto called with mafia business.

She was never going to get used to it.

With trembling hands Elle answered the call.

...

She threw on a pair of jeans to go with her pajama shirt and a large coat. She pulled the edges of it over her chest as she stepped out of the taxi into the chilly night air that nipped at her cheeks and hair, striding into the dark alley with only the moonlight to guide her. She was summoned to a factory downtown without a shred of information about what she was getting into besides the location of the safe house and the fact that a man was injured.

Elle rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and tightened her hold on her first aid bag, pressing her lips together as she braced herself for whatever was on the other side of the iron door.

Roberto swung it open on the first knock and ushered her in quickly. In the dimly lit room on a cramped bed was one of many of Giacarlones ‘soldiers.’ He was groaning in agony, tossing his head, his forehead was bloody and his leg looked crooked. The soldiers were the mafia’s men on the ground, taking orders, and doing the dirty work for their bosses. Directly above the soldiers were the Capo’s who delivered the Don’s instructions. Thus the Don was always in the clear, never having to deal with situations like this.

“What happened?” She rushed to the bedside, Roberto trailing beside her, a Capo and two other soldier’s hovering next to the bed of their fallen comrade.

“Nightwing—whatever the fuck he is—that psycho threw him off a crane!” The Capo told her with growl. “Can you fix his leg?” He demanded.

She knelt and inspected it closely. It was definitely swollen, hot to the touch, when she moved the shin down he screamed. She checked the pulses around the knee, the foot. Elle did few assessments pulling at the knee joint despite his gasps of pain. She apologized but it was imperative she check the nerve function and determine exactly what was broken or dislocated.

The men around her stared and muttered to one another anxiously, one lighting a cigarette, another nursing their own wounds from the fight with Nightwing. Elle glanced around the room, there was some shoddy medical equipment there but it wasn’t enough to properly diagnose an injury like this.

“From what I can tell it’s a knee dislocation, the anterior ligament from my tests, but I’m not an orthopaedic surgeon, I can only do so much,” she told them stoically, knowing it was going to rile them, but her skillset here was truly limited.

“You have to do something in the meantime Doctor,” replied Roberto sternly, “our usual guy is out of town and he won’t be able to reach for another 5 hours.” She knew he wasn’t going to let her leave this place otherwise.

Elle swallowed apprehensively, and peered down at the young man in pain lying before them. No matter who he was, she wanted to help him. Elle did not dare ask what nefarious acts the soldier’s had been up to when Nightwing attacked them. It wasn’t her place to ask, or even to judge. “We have to try and reduce this dislocation. I need a heat pack and ice,” she calmly instructed, as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his bicep to take the reading. “What’s your name?”

“Ronnie,” he told her weakly.

“When was your last meal? Did you take any alcohol, and do you have any allergies that you know of?”

“A-about 7 hours ago,” he said, wincing, “no... no allergies. I just had a smoke, no drinks...”

“I need to set an IV line, I’ve set out the materials last time I was here over in that corner. Bring me a bottle of saline, one bottle of midazolam, fentanyl, and three 50mL syringes.”

She unwrapped the BP cuff and looked up at the blank faces around her, no one moving or even writing what she said down; “why are you standing there, staring?” She rebuked. “Go on, get me what I need!”

...

Elle did what she could. Once sedated and with the analgesic pumping through Ronnie’s veins, his leg reduced and immobilized she told Roberto that he definitely needed to be checked at the hospital where they could x-ray the knee. She knew what could happen if these things were not treated in the right facilities and promptly. He was a young guy, younger than her, he must have a family, someone who was worried about him and she didn’t want him to lose a leg, or worse. Considering what he did for a living, some might say he deserved it, but she had to fulfill her duties anyway.

“The Don thanks you. You pray he makes it, Dr. Storm,” said Roberto tersely as she stood up, zipping her first aid bag.

She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. She had her own headache to nurse too, after instructing three idiots with no medical experience to help stabilize Ronnie and pop his knee back into its socket. It was like handing a gun to three children and letting them run wild with it.

“I will,” she replied.

“For your service,” he handed her a stuffed brown envelope, heavy with her payment. For the urgency and the circumstances around the medical emergency the amount he gave her would be enough to pay for food and her utility bills for all of next month. Elle always felt surreal to hold it in her hands, always guilty. The money was tainted, dirty. Even though technically— she’d helped someone in need. _There can’t be anything wrong with that, _she told herself. So far, she’d never turned the money away. She nodded him her thanks and got out of there.

By then it was almost 4am. She was weary, her mind exhausted, she could hardly see the dark ground beneath her feet. The prospect of having to wake up in 3 hours for work made her want to cry. She tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of her coat, staring ahead at the inky shadows in front of her.

She headed for the lit pavement at the end of the long alley. Suddenly, the sound of metal clanging lightly above her made her heart race. Elle stopped, the hairs on the back of her neck standing. Her breathing hitched in her throat, _it’s just rats, or an alley cat, or both_. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was behind her, Roberto perhaps, but there was nothing but two dumpsters.

Taking a deep breathe in she turned back;

A shadowy figure landed in front of her and she screamed.

Elle stumbled rearwards, clutching her first aid kit to her chest like it would save her life, feeling for the pocket where she kept a set of scalpels;

As the figure straightened, the moonlight hinted at the blue bird on his chest. The very reason she’d been dragged out of her home to this dodgy area of downtown Detroit in the first place.

“Doctor Storm,” said Nightwing, staying where he was, as she stood still, frozen in fear.

“How—how do you know my name?” She croaked out, scarcely loud enough for her to hear her own voice.

“Someone’s following you,” he said.

“W-What?”

He grabbed her arm, a hand covering her mouth and backed her into a one-step stoop and awning. Her eyes were wide with panic as she stared into his mask that covered his eyes. With how dark it was she couldn’t tell what color they were. She realized, too late, that _she _was someone who was working for the mafia. Of course, all of this was going to catch up with her eventually, in the worst imaginable way, it just so happened to be a vigilante who got to her first. _He’s going to torture me, or kill me, or both. _Hot tears of panic pricked her eyes.

He angled his head down and to the side as if listening for something, his forehead creased with concentration, mouth pressed into a thin, grim line;

“I’m going to remove my hand, and I need you to stay quiet, promise me.”

Elle nodded silently, and he did as he told her he would. Nightwing leapt out as a pair of men she hadn’t noticed until then-arrived to the spot she’d been standing. Instead of her, they were met by Nightwing.

She watched him beat them to a pulp, unarming them, flipping through the air with two kicks. He took one or two punches to the gut but he easily threw them off, launching them across the ground. He had two batons, and she didn’t know what the point of them was— until he was jabbing and whacking the thugs across the cheekbones with them. Grunts of pain drifted to her and she covered her mouth to quell the urge to gasp in shock. Elle did not dare to move, and stayed plastered to the wall, watching in terror.

When he was done, she watched the broad muscles of his back move up and down as he caught his breath. He replaced the batons on the sides of his thighs and half-spun to her. She took that as a hint to emerge.

“Are they?—” She asked faintly, unable to finish her question. Elle stood a relatively safe distance form the two unconscious men on the ground and Nigthwing.

Nightwing strolled over to her, closing that safe distance she'd made. “They’ll be out for a couple of hours. You need to get better at watching your surroundings, doctor, you never know who’s hiding, watching you." 

_Like yourself? _

“Who are they?”

“Enforcer’s for the Maroni’s. Probably wanted to shake you up for information on his competitors,” he said. “How’s that piece of shit you patched up, doing?” He said with clear contempt at her illegal side job. 

Caught she stumbled on a response. “You, broke his leg..I...I fixed it...I did—um, what I could,” she replied, her tongue twisting on her words. Now she had Nightwing despising her, and she had no idea what that entailed. She was under no delusion that he was only helping her to be a Good Samaritan; he wanted something in return.

“You’ve gotten yourself into a lot of trouble haven’t you?”

Her throat was getting tighter. “I didn’t ask for it,” she whispered.

He scoffed lightly. “Seems like you’re getting your money’s worth,” he folded his arms lifting his chin at her. He knew too much already.

She was glad it was dim in that alley, and she could hide how red with shame she was. Besides the Giacarlones, no one in her life knew what she what she did for that family. Elle felt absolutely rotten inside to be getting morality lessons from a guy in a mask that beats people up at night.

Elle tucked the envelope of cash deeper into her coat, her palms sweaty. “Look, I-I went to med school and I have a lot of debt... in-in case you didn’t realize how cutthroat the student loan collection system is in our country.”

“That’s bullshit,” he said bluntly. “You already make an honest living, you don’t have to do this.”

Her eyes widened. “You ....you know where I work?” She said, her voice losing volume.

“You’re the ME at the morgue at the police station,” he said. “Kind of convenient for the Giacarlone’s too, isn’t it? To have someone from the department on their payroll.”

A shiver went down her spine. She was at the end of a line after a shitty day, she wanted to cry, and she really, really didn’t need this right now. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged, shrinking away from him. She wanted nothing more than to disappear into a puff of smoke and for all of this to be a nightmare.

“I just saved you. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, like that was obvious to him, but it was certainly was not to her.

She heard the pounding of her heart in her ears, her breathing uneven and fast; “don’t turn me in... please the ME thing—it’s not what wanted to do, and I-I deal with a couple of asshole cops on a daily basis but,” she stuttered, trying to stay calm and say her plea; “but I need that job...it's all I have, and I-I don’t want to get arrested—”

“Hey,” he unfolded his arms and held a placating hand up to her, “I’m not going to call the cops on you, don’t worry about that,” he said, more gently noting her distress. “All I’m saying is I can stop the Giacarlone’s, you could help me.”

If he thought that was supposed to comfort or reassure her, it didn’t. Elle chewed on her lip, he was standing in her way to get out of that dead-end alley.

“It was difficult for you to eradicate any crime family in Gotham... you think Detroit is going to be the place where that changes?” She didn’t know what crossed her mind to think it was a good idea to insult someone like this, someone who could break her leg like he had Ronnie’s. But Elle was tired of false promises from people who said they were 'heroes.' She learnt that from trusting her parents, putting them high on a pedestal. They were everything to her and they crushed her dreams. All she’d ever wanted was to be as good as her older sister, to make her parents proud. She was blinded by the illusion that they were honest people. Until they developed a bioweapon for the Injustice League and killed 500 people, and they did it with no remorse for their actions up until the day they died.

So she decided everyone had the potential to be awful, and just because Nightwing said he was going to do the right thing. That was always going to be his version of what was the right thing.

“We’ll see won’t we?” He dared, and she stepped even further away thinking he was going to move to her but he didn’t.

“So you were Robin before this weren’t you?” She’d caught him there, getting braver to make a dash for it; also proving her theory had been correct all along.

“I think you need to consider what almost happened if I hadn’t showed up,” he said with a barely-concealed growl, ignoring her question. “And if you’re willing to put your safety on the line like that for the rest of your life taking money from those evil people.”

Honestly, Elle didn’t care if the Maroni’s and Nightwing killed each other in whatever war was to come. Some people might berate her for her apathy to such unrest and destruction to the city, but after the year she had, she only had her own back to watch. _Every woman for herself_.

Elle shook her head, hugging her first aid kit bag tighter to her chest. “Sorry but...you can’t guarantee me, my safety.” She wasn’t trying to provoke him, but reason with him; she bore this burden alone, worked alone, lived alone, she only relied on herself. It was too high of a leap of faith to trust a masked vigilante with her life, if there was even the slightest possibility it was going to get her killed for doing so.

His frown deepened. “You trust them with your life?” He asked her. 

As insane as it was, it was safer to go along with the Giacarlone’s than to risk snitching on them and being raped and murdered in a ditch for it. It was either one, or both. She had to keep her word, because she knew the price of betraying them.

“I don’t trust either of you... but at least I know what the Giacarlone’s look like.”

“So you can identify them to the police _after_ they eventually kill you? How does_ that_ work?” He retorted and leaned towards her as if he was going to lunge for her. Elle whimpered and closed her eyes. He lifted something to her in his hand and she nearly seized up in panic until she realized it was her phone that she’d dropped. She was shaking like a leaf all over, but slowly and surely took it from his hand.

“Have it your way,” he said icily and with a grunt leapt into the air to disappear into the dark night.

...

At the end of the working next day, she was changed back into her work clothes a blouse and pencil skirt. She was putting away the last of the sterile tools. Danny was off on his second date tonight which she let him off early for. Elle didn’t mind since she enjoyed tidying up on her own; Danny could occasionally misplace things. There was something calming to her about ensuring the surgical gloves were stacked according to sizes from smallest to largest.

After the evening she had yesterday with that medical emergency with the Giacarlones and her encounter with Nightwing, she was bit more on edge, frazzled. A glass had broken in the break room that caused her to jump, she stared at strangers more closely. She'd taken extra precaution on her commute to work today, despite being late by 20 mins to cover her track, always with the fear that someone was following her. 

She informed Roberto that the Maroni's were following her. She didn't think he gave a crap if she was dead or alive, but he'd definitely care if the Maroni's were trying to make a move on them by tracking her aka their family doctor. 

She was almost done arranging the store room when she heard the lab door open; Detective Grayson walked in. She felt her anxiety spike a little; a tightness in her chest, her mind racing too fast for her to even determine what she was meant to be worried about this time. Like always, it was just her making mountains out of mole holes in her mind.

“Grayson, can I help you?” She said casually, as all of this was going on inside her.

“The autopsy on Simon Loh, it said the blade cut 4 inches deep, that can’t be,” he laid it down on the table in front of her, opening up to show the image. “It was at least 6 inches, consistent with the weapon we found at the crime scene.”

“Weapons can be taken away from the crime scene can’t they?” She said, finishing off her stacking. “Did you search for—”

“Yeah we did that, but I think it would warrant another look,” said Dick. “I know my knives, Doctor. Maybe another perspective would suffice?”

She pursed her lips and refrained from rolling her eyes at him. Elle _knew _what she was doing; she meticulously measured and recorded every single mark and bruise on the cadaver herself for every single case, Danny only handed her the tools she needed and cleaned up afterwards. Yet here Dick Grayson was claiming he didn’t_ trust_ her findings.

_Maybe he should be the medical examiner if he thinks he’s so fantastic at recognizing stab wounds from afar. _

To be fair, there was truly no harm in a second opinion. “I’ll leave this with Dr. Jonathan for the night shift, then” she said, not making the promise to do it herself, she just wanted to go home and catch the hours of sleep she'd been robbed of from last night. The money Roberto paid her still needed to be deposited at the bank, but she hesitated all day, feeling more guilty and afraid since that chat with Nightwing. 

She gathered her bag and realized Grayson wasn’t finished. He had a hand in his pocket and another rubbing his neck as he waited for her;

“Dr. Storm,” he began, making eye contact. “I wanted to apologize for—how I’ve acted the last week towards you,” he said. “I’ve been on edge for reasons that really shouldn’t get in the way of work but I’ve taken it out on my colleagues and friends and that’s not fair, not fair at all.”

The genuine earnest was the last thing she expected from him. “Oh. It’s okay, um, I understand, the job is hard, detective." 

“Do you like Issey Hitoshi?” He asked her, with a half smile, not even a snarky one. “The photographer?”

She hoped this wasn't another once of those instances like with Dr Lila asking her to cover her night shift. “Yes, I do as a matter of fact," she replied, still skeptical as to where this was going.

“He’s having an exhibit downtown, and I have an invitation, for tonight at 7.”

_He has connections, not surprised there. _“That’s amazing,” she said, but from the way the crinkles around his eyes formed in his smile, she could tell she’d missed something;

“Would you like to be my plus one? As a 'I’m sorry'-present?”

Her cheeks went warm, she didn’t even want to imagine how red she actually was. “Oh. Uh—”

“If you’re busy and have plans, its okay,” he said quickly, like this was as awkward for him as it was for her, but she was malfunctioning on the inside. “I just don’t want to go to this thing alone and I noticed you had one of his photos on your wall.”

Elle despised this guy five minutes ago, and now she was going to spend a couple of hours of her evening with him? Elle valued her time immensely. She rarely ever let anything deter her schedule unless she had scheduled it in, planned for it a day in advance. Thus why with working for the Giacarlones, with random summons at night, it felt like her life was hanging on by a thread with the lack of organisation.

‘Spontaneous’ for her these day was never friendly outing (or date? she didn't know) to an exhibition.

“Actually um—okay, sure,” she said, finding her voice and confidence. This wasn’t a date, as far as she knew, and she wasn’t going to pass up to see the workof -and possibly meet-her favorite photographer. “I don’t have plans. I’d love to go.”

“Great,” he clapped his hands with a warm smile. Perhaps she had judged him too harshly. Detective Dick Grayson wasn't an asshole after all. 

* * *

**I know my OC seems like kind of a coward, and that's fair, but I wanted to challenge myself to write someone who wasn't that 'tough' hero type girl persona I usually do. **


	2. Chapter 2

**ELLE **

“I get it,” Detective Grayson gestured at the photo print that spanned half the wall. “It’s a commentary on the state of the environment, with Mother Earth, represented by the woman and her daughter being…us ? I presume?” He said, rubbing his chin in thought in front of the exhibit.

“Mmhm,” she mumbled. They were amongst other photography and art enthusiasts, holding glasses of champagne. Elle had one of her own too, but she rarely drank and she was nervous in this social interaction with her new acquaintance. Her palms were sweaty and the champagne was lukewarm by now.

He peered down at her and smirked, “what was that mmhm?”

“It was nothing, it was just an agreeing mmhm.”

“Sounded like a surprised mmhm.”

Elle flushed, “well I didn’t take you for someone who appreciates art like that,” she shrugged, giving him her most honest answer, because that tended to be her default. “I thought maybe you were just here to keep me company.”

“I am here for you,” he stated,“but I also I know how to appreciate art, and any beauty in life,” he said, with a cheesy flourish of his fingers, trying to make her laugh…and it did. “I am full surprises.”

“I’ve noticed.”

He stuffed his hands in his pocket and half-turned to her, more serious look to him; “I wanted to say I didn’t mean to ask you about your family like that, the other day, with that fake reporter,” he said. “It was really insensitive. I know I’m apologising a lot… but I have a lot I need to apologise for.”

She pressed her lips thinly, letting the air out through her nose, as she tried to relax, letting each muscle unwind from head to toe like her therapist told her to. “It’s alright. I’m used to it,” said Elle.

Morgan Hawthorne was a real person, who’s boyfriend died in the attack in Paris using the bioweapon Elle’s parents created. She couldn’t help but look her up after the incident.

If the Justice League hadn’t gotten there in time the death toll would have been far greater.

“Do you miss them?” He asked, and Elle, clutched her champagne glass even tighter she thought it would crack. With her hesitation he squeezed his eyes shut; “Sorry, sorry that was not the right time to ask that, when we just started to click-“

She cleared her throat, “no, no. Um, I don’t normally tell people, but… I do.” Her therapist had said she had to allow people in, people who meant well; considering she spent way too much time in her own thoughts and with no social support. _When you lose your entire family you need alternatives, apparently. _

Since Grayson didn’t seem as awful as she thought he was, she opened up;_ “_We weren’t the perfect family- obviously.” Elle had always been second best to her older sister, Natalie, she’d grown to live in that shadow, but they loved one another, and they supported one another nonetheless.

_Yet somehow mum and dad managed to corrupt her too_.

“But, I guess I’d really, really like to go back to the time when none of it had happened. Now that I look back; I just ignored the cracks on the surface.”

She did see it. The increasing number of trips they took. The eyebags of exhaustion under Natalies eyes. How closed off they became, even more so than usual during their biweekly family dinners that became once a month and then every 2 months. At the time Elle was going through the rough patch in her life of failing her Surgical residency and needing to switch careers paths; their support was lacking, their disappointed high, because of this ‘secret’ project they were working on.She’d made a mistakeduring the surgery, she was negligent and the patients’ wife had dragged Elle through court for it (rightly so). She was asking for any pity or forgiveness for what she did. But the least she could’ve had from them was guidance.

To this day she never really knew why they did what they did. All she knew was that she was always going to resent them for that they put her through. (Was still putting her through.)

“I can relate,” said Dick, drawing her out of her thoughts, after Elle had been staring at the beautiful mother in the photograph. “My adoptive dad was really tough on me, borderline sociopathic sometimes,” he chewed his lip and shook his head slowly. “But he was the only family I had.”

That was actually quite comforting to admit how she felt about her family to someone. It had been difficult to open up to the therapist in recent months because of the Giacarlones. She gave a long sigh and ushered him to observe the next print.

“I think we turned out okay, despite the circumstances,” said Elle.

He smiled at her, a genuine one. “Yeah, I think so too.”

…

Elle went to sleep feeling a lot more hopeful that night. Grayson dropped her home after the exhibit, he had been teasing her because she got flustered meeting Issey Hitoshi and dousing the man in compliments on his photography.

As per schedule she went to the Giarcarlones in the morning to check on Dahlia, the Don’s daughter. The Don and his wife were paranoid that the doctor’s were going to spread rumours that their daughter was sick, or even sell her out to other gangs.

Dahlia was their ‘weakness’ something they couldn’t fix quickly with money. The prognosis for her particular cancer wasn’t good, but she had been instructed by Roberto not to mention it around the Don’s wife; Isabella.

Elle understood their paranoia to some extent; they were important people, but they shouldn’t escalate that fear and let it touch Dahlia’s life—she was already going through so much with the treatment and just living with a knife over the head that she may or may not be alive within the next few months.

The family even paid the oncologist handsomely for the chemotherapy and to keep his mouth shut.All of the doctors they employed were like her too: scared for their lives.

Dahlia was in her bedroom. It had soft carpets, a bed with the finest linens and duck-egg blue princess hangings over it. There were tall windows with a view of the small river behind their home. Dahlia was sat in the reading nook when she entered. Elle noticed she was starting to gain weight, the hollow in her cheeks had filled up, but the progress was slow.

“I missed you, Doc,” she said after Elle finished checking her vital signs, asking her about how the chemo was going and general symptoms related to that.

“I missed you too, Miss Dahlia.”

Dahlia rolled her eyes and threw his hands onto the cushion beneath her. “For the last time, you don’t have to be so formal here,” she said, irritable.

“Your mother insisted.”

“Well screw her,” Dahlia tossed her arm towards the door and crossed them in a huff;“I inherited this cancer gene from her side anyway.”

“Dahlia,” Elle admonished. “Come on, that’s an awful thing to say, it’s no one’s fault.”

“There we go; talk to me like a normal person,” she smirked; “I am nauseous all the time, dizzy, and I have so much diarrhoea… I just need a friend not an adult.”

Her words saddened Elle. The Don had pulled his only daughter out of private school to be homeschooled during her treatment. She was bored and lonely in the mansion all by herself. Dahlia grimaced, staring out a the family of ducks in the river.

“I got you a gift,” said Elle, hoping to brighten her day.

Dahlia looked to her and quirked her eyebrow; “From the money Roberto slides you in a big brown envelope?”

It had never been her intention to allow Dahlia to see Roberto handing her the envelope once upon a time. She didn’t want her to feel as though Elle was just a servant like the others in the mansion, hired to keep her company, (technically she was) but she genuinely cared for her. She wanted her to know that, not in words but in actions. Once Dahlia got better (Elle prayed everyday she did) she would be one of those patients Elle would never forget for the rest of her life. (That is, if the Don ever released her from being his family’s doctor).

“Yes, now will you let me give it to you or you’d I keep it for myself?”

“Yes, yes!” She bounced on the cushion with a wide grin, leaning to Elle. “Show me.”

Elle took out the film camera from her handbag and handed it to her.

Dahlia’s expressed went from shock to unbound glee. “No way….no fucking way!” 

“Yes.” Elle was smiling like a child as well, not even bothering to correct her on the curse word like she should’ve.

“This is… this is like finding a needle in a haystack! The sellers on Ebay said I was outbid for it!” She exclaimed, holding the vintage camera in her hands, gawking at it with awe. “You remembered.”

“Of course I did,” replied Elle. “I wanted to get you something nice because you were starting treatment-oh.”

Dahlia set the camera down and wrapped her arms around Elle, taking her off guard. As someone was who opposed to affection, she swallowed and slowly hugged her back. She felt a warmth blossoming inside of her, that she rarely got from this kind of interaction.

“Thank you,” Dahlia muttered into Elle’s dark hair. “ I wish you were here all the time.”

Elle chewed the inside of her cheek, feeling herself getting choked up over it. She wished they had met under different circumstances. That she wasn’t indentured to the Giacarlones, that she wasn’t risking her life, her safety, her freedom to be here just to check on sick little girl who needed someone to love her in a way her parents could not. “If you need to talk to me, you have my number,” they let go of one another, “I’ll always reply, maybe not a call-“

“Too busy dissecting bodies?” Dahlia said. Elle had never told her what she actually did as a day-job and her gaze widened;

“Dad told me what you do after you come here,” Dahlia, shrugged, offhandedly,“so you get to cut a man’s skull open… with a saw?!”

* * *

Afterwards, there were fresh cadavers to examine, Elle was looking forward to getting the work done. On the days she got to see Dahlia her mood was always a bit brighter. She loved her, she was like a little sister to her. It had only been Natalie and Elle their whole lives. Now with her big sister gone, Elle found she loved caring for someone just the way Natalie had cared for her when they were younger. She could reminisce in the good times when things were good. _Before everything changed, before we grew up, before we had to competewith one another, and she was better than me at everything. _

Elle easily got lost in Dahlia’s crazy, enthusiastic questions, innocence and thirst for life; despite her diagnoses and treatment

Even Danny noticed she appeared different. It was strange how one outing to an exhibition she loved, with someone she barely knew could make her feel so much better.

“Did you go on a date?” He asked her through his blue mask as he pulled the white sheet over the victim’s body.

“No I didn’t,” she tried not to smile even though it would’ve been hidden by her face mask.

“Then I can’t figure out why you look like you’re glowing. Are you pregnant, Doc?” They moved the tools to the next cadaver.

She scowled at him, “I am not, now let’s keep going; I don’t know what happened last night, but suddenly we get 7bodies in one go and the funeral-“

“Detective Mitchel said it was Nightwing again,” said Danny, sending a shiver down her spine. She’d buried that encounter in the back of her mind. “He was there at the docks when the explosion happened. Our guys didn’t get there in time, unfortunately.”

A large explosion indeed; it decimated the Maroni’s cargo ship. The bodies they had to examine were pretty straight forward, they were charred, had contusions, burns. Most had died due to head injuries from what she could determine on first look. That being said, after opening up two; they found cocaine inside their intestines. They were drug mules, moving the drug by swallowing packets of the cocaine dipped in oil. Thus the reason they had to examine all the bodies. Elle had a gut feeling it wasn’t their choice to be drug smugglers. The case would have to be handed to DEA this week.

“So he caused the explosion,” she stated as she precisely, and carefully, started her incision longitudinally down a victim’s thorax.

“He was trying to save those people, Doc,” Danny said, defending the vigilante vehemently. Elle had gotten good at listening to him chat while she worked, so it didn’t phase her that he was starting a debate with her over this.

“Our guys were on the way, he didn’t need to be there,” said Elle firmly.

“Well they clearly didn’t get there on time.”

The lab door opened and Grayson walked in with a small wave. “Good afternoon Doctor Storm.”

She stopped her motions with the scalpel. “Oh, detective-um, we haven’t finished, yet.”

“Of course,” he said, holding his hands up. “I didn’t meant to barge in, but I am curious as to what you found, if you have a minute?”

Normally she would never have obliged to that request, but since she was trying to be less of a stick in the mud and he had been kind to her she allowed it; “Sure.” Elle motioned him to follow her to the first two bodies. Elle couldn’t help but note Danny’s eyes went round to see her not reprimand Grayson for interrupting their autospy.

“These two,” she uncovered the sheets over the cadavers, their skin marbled and ashen. “Clearly drug mules; one male early twenties, female late twenties. He swallowed 10, one burst when the ship was attacked by the vigilante. The female victim had 12.” She gestured to the bags of coke on the counter nearby arranged neatly in rows. “The baggies were 3 by 2 inches. We have yet to weigh them and run a toxicology on the purity; but I estimate it’s about 4 pounds between the two victims.”

Grayson licked his lips, his forehead creased with concern and also discomfort. She’d never known him to be unnerved by the site of dead bodies, so she found it strange. “Sounds about right; the Maroni’s are changing up their tactics.”

“Are you okay?” She asked, pulling her face mask down so he would see the rest of her face.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied, coolly, forcing a smile to her. “Thank you.”

Once he left and Elle rejoined Danny, he pulled his mask down, his mouth hanging open;

“You went out with him!” he stabbed a gloved finger at her.

“No I didn’t,” she lied, quite terribly.

“You despised him 2 seconds ago, and now…?” Danny shook his head, still stunned. “You’re letting him waltz into autopsies? You nearly beheaded me because I came late once.”

She yanked her mask back over her face; to get back to work and also to hide how red she was; “It’s none of your business, Daniel,” even using his full name to make it clear she didn’t want to discuss it further.

Naturally, Danny made it his business for the rest of the afternoon.

…

They had spent the rest of the day on the autopsies and they still were not done with the 7 bodies when it was time to clock out. Elle was exhausted, so she let Danny go home while she closed up the office, as she did her reports at her desk. She couldn’t wait to go home and change out of her day-to-day work clothes of midi skirt and collared shirt, there was the lingering scent of formadehyde on her skin that she was eager to wash off.

Suddenly there was a thunderous bang on the metal door that lead to the loading dock. Elle jumped up and clutched her chest, her heart beating so fast as though it would escape her ribcage.

She took a deep gulp and grabbed a scalpel from the surgical tools. After the Maroni incident in the alley, she wasn’t taking any chances. And indeed, she didn’t have Nightwing to save her this time. She strode with light footfalls down the hallway to the metal door. The light bulb Danny kept forgetting to fix in the hallway was flickering like a scene from a horror movie.She was in a morgue, but those horror movies of zombies were always fairytales to her, things she would ridicule.

But in this case, she was sweating in fear at whatever could be on the other side of that door, the least of her concerns was zombies…

Another bang came and she gasped, fist lifted high to attack. The door swung open.

Nightwing stood there in the doorway, hunched over, blood down his cheek, the gloomy streetlight forming his silhouette. She was going to yell when he suddenly fell to his knees and then onto his palms.

“Doctor…” he breathed.

He was taking in breaths hard and fast, wet and painful. Her instincts kicked in and she rushed to him, but before she could place her hands on him he lifted his hand out; “don’t…don’t…” he stopped her.

And then he lifted his head to her, the mask falling off.

Elle’s jaw dropped to the floor. It couldn’t be. It was impossible.

“Detective Grayson…” she whispered, feeling like the world was tilting on it’s axis. “You’re….you’re him?” She stammered, she felt faint. “I-I didn’t-oh my God, it-this—“

“I need your help,” he told her, shakily.

As the initial shock subsided, it was replaced by astonishment and confusion. _How are they the _same _ person?_ However, it was overpowered by an intense, pungent garlic of him, as if it was doused all over, it made her eyes water, she covered her nose.

“The smell…what is that?”

“Phos-phophorus…” He gestured at his neck, lifting one leg off the ground to try and stand. “It’s on my neck…it’s burning,” he gasped in pain, holding onto the doorway for dear life with one steady hand.

She crouched down to his level. “You need a hospital, Grayson,” she swallowed, still not believing this was real. This was an emergency she could not handle. But as she got her phone from her pocket, he lunged for it. Elle yelped and hopped out of his reach but not quick enough. He snatched it from her and it tossed over his shoulder. A 700 dollar phone; shattered on the concrete behind him.

“Grayson!” She admonished, no longer frozen in shock, but frankly; very pissed off. “You have an extremely hazardous chemical all over you! There are CDC protocols for this we can’t just—!”

He grabbed a handful of her shirt and she gasped, holding her breathe. She didn’t want to inhale any of the leftover fumes.

“No. Hospital,” he said through bared teeth. “I swear to God, Doc, if you try for one you’ll regret it—“

“Okay, okay, okay, fine,” she yanked her shirt back, getting as far as she could out of his reach that she fell onto the butt on the ground. She did not want to rehash the night they met in the alley. Elle was rattled by how easy it was for him to threaten her, how he become something, _someone else_ to her in the span of a minute. She didn’t even know who he was anymore. Not even the asshole cop she’d met initially, or the charming guy from last night. _I can’t believe it was last night. _

_And he said he’d turned out alright, after the childhood he had, _he definitely, _definitely, had not. _

Nonetheless, she pulled it together and jogged to the supply closet. Time was of the essence now.

Elle yanked a pair of gloves on and grabbed a few other things. She deduced the chemicals were diluted since the exposed areas and his suit weren’t smoking from the corrosion. She sprinted back to him, her current outfit was not appropriate for now, as she flashed him when she knelt, but it didn’t matter; they were passed that by now;

“Can you get up?” Elle asked.

He was still at the same position he was in before. He nodded laboriously. “Yeah… slowly.”

“You’re going to have to move faster,” she insisted, “you need to get that washed off you. Before it eats away at your suit.”

“It won’t,” he shook his head, “not the way he designed it…”

“Come on.” She chucked a blanket over his shoulders to protect herself from any phosphorus that might still be wet on his suit. She hauled him to his feet, struggling at first, but pivoting her weight to her dominant leg helped and she arranged his arm over her shoulders. Goddamn he was heavy, but she was more than determined to get him to the emergency shower.

She pushed him under the shower head and blasted it at full water pressure. His body jolted at the rush of ice cold water that drenched him. The water was stored in a separate tank that was not heated.

“You need to take the suit off,” she told him. She moved swiftly; taking off the gloves she’d used to carry him incase they were contaminated. She threw on a blue scrub set over her clothes, shoe slips and goggles. He unbuckled bits of his Nightwing suit, shedding them one by one and then paused when it came to the collar. Elle cringed at the pain over his features, but he bit his lip and pulled the sleeves down, until it all came off and he was naked except for his black underwear beneath the water.

Elle instructed him to wash in downward motions. She got out durable industrial grade bags used to put discarded organs from cadavers. It was a messy business checking the bit behind his nape where the phosphorus managed to get him. She asked him to kneel on the tiles as she bent over to check it. Elle pushed aside his damp hair. It was small nick, thank goodness.

“This will sting,” she warned.

“Just do it.”

Elle steadied her hand over his shoulder and washed the corroded skin with copious amounts of cold water and saline. He sucked in air between his teeth as the first of the saline hit the open flesh, yet he clenched his jaw and controlled it, not uttering a word as she went to work. Her entire right side was beneath the shower water with him. Getting herself half drenched too, her hair and clothes sticking to her skin.

Once she was satisfied he was completely clean of the chemicals, the next hour was Elle ordering him to move around as she cleaned the place up. He gave her the abridged version of what happened that led him here. A chemical plant owned by the Giacarlones, a pipe of phospohorus bursting on him, how she was the closest Doctor around that he could turn to. Elle didn't want to hear anything else beyond that. She was hired by the Giacarlones and it felt like a conflict of interest. When it came to his suit lying in a puddle on the ground she picked it upwith gloved hands and chucked it into a garbage bag. By the time it was over and she was certain there was no trace of phosphorus in the morgue she told him to settle down in the corner office. He was lingering by her desk as she went to the changing room and grabbed a pair of scrubs trousers.

“Underwear off too, just in case it was contaminated,” she approached him before he could sit down.

“I have no other clothes.”

She held up the scrubs trousers, he scowled but complied and she turned away to give him privacy to change. Once he was done, she spun about and opened the garbage bag up for him to chuck the underwear in with his Nightwing suit.

He sat down on her office chair, with dripping wet brown hair, a black canvas she used for cadavers thrown over his shoulders to keep him warm. Elle stood infront of him and shone a flash light in his eyes, silently taking his pulse.

Elle handed him some pain medication for the bruised rib he had, a discovery they’d made when he was half-naked under the shower With him shirtless she could see the worrisome purple-blue bruising on his side.

“Any difficulty breathing?” She asked stoically, as per standard procedure. They were not getting to the elephant in the room just yet, but now that the emergency was out of the way, the tension was brewing.

“Nope,” he dry-swallowed the meds without water.

“That needs a chest x-ray, to be sure, we don’t want any complications, if it’s fractured it could puncture your-“

“It’s not fractured. I’ll be fine, I’ve had plenty before,” he replied, calmly.

Elle wasn’t impressed by any of that, she trusted in medicine— not on some masked vigilantes assumptions. Protocols _had _to be followed, there was centuries of research on this, countless developments in biotech, clinical practices that were _standard_ to follow because they were tried and true and worked. They were important, and he was dismissing it like it didn’t mean anything. If any sane person had broken an arm once, and the next time they injured thei other arm, they wouldn’t just leave it be with no investigations, no sling, no treatment, nothing, to let it ’heal’ on it’s own. _It doesn’t fucking work like that. _

She was getting increasingly annoyed. “You _need_ a hospital,” she insisted once more with a scowl. “If you inhaled the phosphorus then I don’t have the supplies to deal with something like that. Your body might slowly be going into shock and I can’t monitor that here,” she said sternly, “I can’t have you dying on the floor of my lab and examining you the next morning, Detective. What would everyone say?”

Dick has the gall to stiflea chuckle, it was about to burst from him; but he kept his composure because she wasn’t having any of it.

“I wore a respirator, I didn’t inhale any of it,” he replied.

_He has an answer to everything of course, and of course he finds this funny, somehow. _Elle rolled her eyes and took out a pack of ice from the fridge and her stethoscope from her briefcase.

“Let me listen, at least.”

She checked his lungs front and back. He shivered with his skin exposed to the colder air of the office, but that was the least of his concerns apparently (or rather her concerns since she was the only one who gave a crap about his broken ribs).

“I bet you have questions-” He said to her as she checked his lungs and his voice rumbled in a deep echo through the stethoscope, into her ears.

“Always rather annoying when patients talk when I’m supposed to listen to their breathing, did you know that?” She said and he shut up until she finished. “Your lungs are clear,” she stood in front of him and he titled his head up to her. “But I meant it about the hospital.”

He gave a half-hearted smile. “Same answer as before, doctor.”

He was bold. She had forgotten what is was like to deal with patients who had their mind made up about what they thought was good for them. She sat down on the coffee table in front of him. “No veiled threats this time though.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry about all of this,” he said, but Elle didn’t know if she could even believe that. “I...normally have people to turn to when something like this happen, but here, I don't. And you don’t seem phased by knowing what I am.”

“I’ve seen stranger things… I also feel a bit more reassured that the guy saving me on the dark streets is someone I sort of know,” she said, it wasn’t 100% trust, safety, and roses from there but at least the mask was off and she knew what she was dealing with.

_At least I think I do. _

“The asshole cop from work?” He said, blank faced.

She ran her fingers through the damper side of her hair, _someone I was actually starting to like as a friend, just for a moment actually. _

“You didn’t look too happy to be saved that night, but I think I understand,” Dick said when she was quiet for a while. “You were afraid and I didn’t help with that at all.”

Elle didn’t answer his question, but she didn’t deny it either.“Your medical check up records in your transfer file were extremely concerning,” she said instead, and got up to pack the first aid kit.

“You looked at my file?”

“No. It’s common knowledge-gossip,” she replied, tossing her stethoscope into her briefcase. “And yes of course I had to confirm it by taking a peek at your file,” she turned to him. “I don’t take what anyone says for granted in this place. You’re a fairly good cop Dick, I’ll give you that.”

“Thanks?” He mumbled. 

She wasn't as fearful of him now as she was before. "Why did you bring this here, to this city?” She said, referring to his Nightwing alter-ego, they'd said it many times before that masks attract masks; good and bad. All crazy. 

“It’s a part of who I am," he stated, unwaveringly. 

“So I was right, you were Robin and now you’re this; Nightwing.”

“Yes, you were right," he said and smirked at her; “Happy?”

She didn't even feel bad to be glad that she was, but she couldn't even share this mini victory with anyone else. “So the Robin in Gotham is-“

“Someone else.”

“Your replacement.”

At that point she realized she'd touched a nerve. His jaw clenched and he cleared his throat, “Yeah, pretty much,” he said, not too pleased.

Elle leaned forward cupping her hands in front of her. She couldn't forget what she'd seen today; “Those seven people, Dick—you were there at the docks…when they—“

“Yes," he said over her. “I tried to stop them, I tried, you have to believe me. I didn't want those people to die," he explained, hoping that she would understood, "they had a backup plan, a fucking dumb one...and I wasn’t there on time. I keep thinking about every step that went wrong.”

She let out a shaky breath; it was probably the wrong thing to say but she said it anyway; “To me it just seems.. reckless, I'm sorry, it's how I see it." If the cops had gotten there and carried through with the mission with enough resources and back-up, perhaps the explosion would not have gone off when Nightwing spooked the smugglers. They would still have witnesses and saved the two innocent drug mules.

He grimaced at her. “No offence Doc, you weren’t there on the ground, you don’t know.”

“No I don’t," she said, of course she didn't. “But what you do is dangerous for others, and for you.” Surely someone cared that he was out there risking his life on a day to day, but they either were allowing it, truly didn't care, or couldn't stop him no matter how hard they tried. 

“I’ve been doing this a long time, doctor, I know," said Dick. "And I already hate myself enough, not just for this, for many things that have happened in the past that I regret." From the look on his face, he meant it. Whatever ghosts were still haunting him. Perhaps they had that in common, endless regrets, broken trust, failed promises. Elle didn't know where to start. 

“I’m not going to pretend like I really understand this, or you. Okay? I don’t," said Elle. "I’ve never put on a mask and beat up people in my spare time.”

“I don’t expect you too.”

“My advice, which I hope you’ll take; is you should take it easy for a while and rest," she said, falling back on what she knew well, which was to be a doctor, it was the only thing that made any sense any more. "That rib is going to take at least a month to heal.”

“This old friend called Ibuprofen should help too," he replied, stubborn as ever. “And I certainly don’t need a month to lick my wounds.”

She frowned at him. “Fine.”

“You can’t help but care," he said softly. "It’s in your nature. I admire that, a lot. It’s something we have in common.”

She let out a dry scoff, he was good at this too wasn't he? Of playing every side of himself that he chose to present to her. She even believed he_ cared_ about her beyond what she could give him in return; “Did you only want to spend time with me yesterday—in case something like this ever happened?” She said. “When a time would come where I needed to trust you? As Nightwing?”

“I never planned on revealing my identity to you like this, but part of it was that," he admitted, with a guilty look and a deep sigh. That hurt Elle more than it should, she leaned away from him and peered at her shoes, feeling nauseated, like someone had smacked her cheek. How could she have been so blind? So stupid? Everyone had a hidden agenda, for a second she almost believed Dick Grayson was different from all the awful people she'd had to deal with in the last year, the ones with cruel intentions and ulterior motives. Her only shining grace of someone who was exactly who they said they were; was Danny and Dahlia.

No lies, no hidden truths or half-truths, _no evil plans to kill people like my parents had. _

“But I am truly sorry, about how I acted before all this," he added, seeing that she was disheartened by what he said. She doubted he even cared what how she felt about any of this as long as he got what he wanted. 

“Your little manipulation worked momentarily,” she said coldly, “and you knew I wouldn’t turn you away.”

“I was counting on you, to be you, helping people, which is what you’re good at, really good at," he said to salvage it, he was really trying. "You fixed that guy’s leg with the bare minimum of supplies and pretty much all your own, and you helped me. Helping people, that’s what I want too," he said clutching his bare chest.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “As Nightwing or Detective Grayson? Or both?”

He raised his brows seeing that she wasn't going to be easily placated into forgiving him or even trusting him again.

“Are you going to turn me in?” He asked carefully, and she looked at him worried, if he was going to yank her again. “I had to ask, it’s a force of habit."

"It was only a few days ago it was you asking me the exact same thing,” she replied, after giving it some thought throughout the evening. “Even if I did attempt to turn you in, you’d probably find someway to clear your name. Call up one of your ‘hero’ friends to put on your suit while you were at work, hide everything in your apartment before the police searched it;wipe security footage with tech the station would never be able to afford. Am I close?”

“Yeah,” Dick agreed. “Is that yes or no, I need to know," he pressed. "I’m trusting you with my life here, Doc.”

That angered her; "because if I break that trust, you’ll threaten me?”

"Because it’ll make all of our lives unnecessarily difficult," he replied, patiently. 

“I won’t say anything, don’t worry. I’m not interested in ruining your life," said Elle, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. “I have enough problems of my own, you know that." 

“Thank you," said Dick, but Elle didn't take it to heart, she just wanted to forget this.

“I haven’t changed my mind about what I said, about the Giacarlones.”

_Here we go. _“Neither have I. I meant what I said aboutnot getting in trouble," she said. 

"So is this what you want to be? A mob doctor?" He replied, frowning disdainfully. 

"They're sick like anyone else, and despite being gangsters and crime bosses, I treat them and their mums and uncles and aunts. They get heart attacks and Alzheimer's, diabetes like any other American. It’s not different-"

He wasn't accepting her excuse; "didn’t you take an oath or something when you graduated medical school? Hippocratic oath, I believe?” He countered hotly. “Do you know how many innocent people they’ve killed?"

"What do you want, Grayson?" She burst out, it was obvious he wasn't going to let this go. 

"I'm trying to understand, because you seem like someone who knows the right thing to do," he persisted. "You’re a good person, El."

_Everyone tells me that; Danny, my therapist. "_You don’t know me," she said stiffly. “And you’re being a hypocrite; you walked onto my doorstep asking for my help, while wearing a mask, taking advantage of me, it’s what they do too.”

His jaw clenched, ticked off. "It's different," he replied firmly, “his kid is sick, too, right?”

_How could he have known that? _"You followed me," she concluded raising a brow, from the way his shoulders fell and small nod he gave that was a yes. "Why would you do that? If you knew how afraid I was.”

"I was looking out for you and I was just trying to understand," he reasoned, but it wasn't good enough for her. 

"It's a blood cancer," she told him. "I picked up on the signs before and that prompted them to a specialist to properly diagnose it. She’s a sweet girl and they don’t deserve her." Dahlia wasn't born to somehow save her father, her family, she deserved a better life away from the terrible things they had done. "I’m not saying that what they do is okay, it’s not. But...she needs me to help her get through this, and I can’t risk being their target either." 

"You're afraid," he stated the obvious. 

Elle let out a humorless bark, "of course i’m afraid, and I’m more afraid of them than I am of you." 

He leaned forward in the office chair towards her until his head was closer to hers, she didn't flinch away. "I’ve been told I’m closed off, rude, a little selfish sometimes. You also see me that way, right? You can be honest about it." 

She snorted, highly inappropriate for the conversation, "yeah, that’s accurate." She didn't want to look him in the eyes so she settled for staring at her hands in front of her. 

"I wasn’t always like that," said Dick, his voice sounded distant. "In the beginning, being in this life, doing this, was what I needed. But then at one point it changed or maybe I grew up and started to see that I was changing and in a bad way. I hated who I was, what I was becoming. I was scared and lost, everything I’d thought I knew, wasn't true anymore. Perhaps you feel that way too, after what happened with your parents." 

Elle glanced up and his eyes were staring right at hers, she flushed and couldn't steady her gaze on him.

"And you think you can’t trust anyone anymore and you think you deserve to be bullied by the Giacarlones for what your family did to those innocent people," said Dick. Then he did the one thing that set her on edge; he reached out and his cold hand clasped her cupped ones; “But you don’t, you don’t deserve to live your life like this, to have to be afraid everyday.”

He was right. It was salt to the wound to have him point out her exact thought patterns since her parent's crimes came to light. She wished he was wrong. Elle pulled her hands away from him, closing her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. She was beat, upset, overwhelmed, and she couldn't think straight. All she had was this feeling of a weight was dragging her down to the bottom of the sea. She didn't ask for this.

"I want to go home," she announced. “I think you should leave." Elle stood up quickly, and Dick's gaze followed her as he straightened in the chair. He bit his lip, like he was trying to think of something else to stay to convince her to be his...spy? She didn't know. But he gave up on it...for the time being.

"Okay," he went. "Can I borrow some scrubs, it’s almost day light and I can’t be seen walking out in my Nightwing suit.”

Elle nodded, went to the changing rooms and came back when he was standing and waiting for her. 

“Here.”

“Thank you, again," he said taking it off her and she waited for him to mention the Giacarlones or whatever that had transpired, but perhaps they could really move past this as if it never happened, silently go back to being professional colleagues who didn't know each other at the precinct, and she would forget he was really Nigthwing. 

“You’re welcome."

* * *

**What do think? Should I continue? The POV is mostly ELLE, and expect some chapters of fluff and a slow burn**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, thanks for stopping by :) Apologies for any grammar errors I edit these myself. Side note: there is a pandemic out there, please stay safe. My medical school finally cancelled all classes for us, and the country is in lockdown. So I guess...it's time to write!**

**Quick recap: in the last chapter our main character Dr Elle, working for the Italian mafia as their family doctor, is approached by Nightwing AKA her work colleague Dick Grayson at Detroit Police. She is floored by the revelation that he moonlights as a masked vigilante and rejects his offer to team up to take down the mob. **

* * *

**ELLE **

When she woke up the next day. It felt as though what happened was from a bizarre dream. _Grayson is Nightwing._ Of all the things that had happened in her life, she thought she would be more immune to these kinds of revelations and setbacks, yet she still felt herself dissociating from the world as the day wore on. When she made herself coffee she didn't enjoy the smell of the dark roast like she normally did, driving to the morgue, making small talk with people from work, she just didn’t feel present.

Elle had a feeling Dick would not let it go as she had asked. If he was as persistent and aggressive as he was when he was chasing down leads in normal detective cases, she could only imagine what he would be like trying to convince her to help him take down the Giacarlones. _When he is a faceless vigilante, where none of the laws apply to him—unless he gets caught. _He took a huge risk to reveal his secret to her, he _wanted _her to know, and he was going to follow through with it, no matter what.

As they were closing up the latest cadaver, Danny started to whine about how hungry he was. Admittedly Elle was taking longer than normal to stitch up the thorax on purpose, so she could avoid the possibility of Grayson approaching her. Nonetheless, her purposeful slowness was irking her too and she changed out of the sterile gowns and went for lunch as well. 

Elle was a creature of habit, it wasn't hard for him to find her. She sat in her quiet spot nearest the window in the uniformed officers break room, exactly where she would be at 1 pm on a weekday.

“Good afternoon, doctor,” his voice came from above her, breaking her concentration on a journal article she was scrolling through on her iPad.

Elle swallowed anxiously. She didn’t fully lift her head. “Hello Grayson,” the memory of the smell of phosphorus and Dick trying to take her hand last night came back to her. She remained as aloof as possible. “The uh, Wendon case report should be done by this afternoon, Danny finished removing the skull base and weighing the kidneys.”

“Fantastic,” quipped Grayson. “I’m eager to know how much the kidneys weigh.”

Obviously he was being sarcastic, but Elle’s social skills still had much to be desired;

“Approximately 3.5 pounds each,” she answered by reflex. “Although he had a cyst in his left kidney, asymptomatic, not that it mattered in the end, so that adds an extra-“

“This is for you.”

He set down a to-go cup of coffee from her favourite cafe on the lunch table.

“Oh,” she blinked at it, “thanks.” Elle looked up at him. _God, he looks so normal like this; neat shirt, suit jacket, no tie. _He even looked like he had a better night’s sleep than her, _he__ was doused head to toe in phosphorous just 13 hours ago, how is that possible?_

“Danny said you liked caramel lattes with skimmed milk and an extra shot of espresso, piping hot.”

“Yeah, he pays attention.”

“May I?” He gestured to the opposite chair. 

She nodded and moved her book bag off to give him room, growing more tense by the second.

He caged his fingers out on the table before them, and cut straight to it; “I wanted to discuss last night.”

“Nothing happened,” she said too quickly to reassure him it _wasn’t _a problem.

“Doc,” he started, matter-of-factly.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything, I’ll pretend I didn’t help you. I can keep a secret."

“I meant what I said about the Giacarlones."

“I meant what I said aboutnot getting in trouble,” she shot back, raising her voice more than she intended. Elle turned her gaze down to her iPad, willing him to just disappear, but there were only so many things in her life she had control over these days.

“Dr Storm, you can't keep ignoring the dangers of what you've gotten yourself into. If it’s about not getting into trouble, then why are you taking money from them?” He asked her, the question bothering her, gnawing in her stomach. She didn’t grant him an answer. “Frankly, you should really think of better ways of hiding your money, because money can always be traced.”

“Which means you’ve already traced it.”

“Didn’t even take two minutes.”

Her jaw tightened and she frowned at him skeptically. “Why do you think I’m even capable of what you’re asking me? Because I know I’m not.”

“I know enough to know that if you had the choice you wouldn’t be doing this.”

Her frowned deepened. “Of course you do, you’ve already looked through my bank transactions, and I get the feeling you know more about me than I would ever be willing to tell you.”

“There are more bodies in the morgue than I can count on both hands that are in there _because_ of the Giacarlones, and you still won’t change your mind?” He challenged her.

They could go in circles with this, Elle opened her mouth to respond when they were interrupted; 

“Hey boss,” Danny stopped in his tracks, the tension in the room palpable. His eyes shifted from Grayson to Elle. “Ugh… do you mind checking the Wendon report one more time? If you’re not too busy.”

“We were just finishing up,” she gave both of them a tight smile and gathered her book bag without even tidying up the table like she normally would. She had half a mind to leave Grayson's peace-offering coffee behind but didn’t want to raise any questions. Elle could feel Dick Grayson’s eyes boring into her back as she speed-walked back to the morgue.

…

“Mrs Giacarlone. How are you today?” Elle asked the Don’s mother. She picked up her soft, frail hand and pricked the fingertip, collecting the drop of blood onto the glucose reading strip. She’d done this countless times but the old lady never got use to the bite of the tiny needle.

The Don’s mother was sat by the window in a large armchair, she peered up at Elle worriedly. “If I have my books I’ll feel much better. Where did all the books in my room go? Were they moved?”

“I’ll get someone to bring them around.”

“Pardon me dear, who are you? There are so many people in and out of this house, I can never remember who they are.”

She asked her the same question every time Elle did the check-up, which was once or twice a week for the last four months. “I’m your doctor, Dr Storm, but you can call me Elle.”

“Ah,” she smiled, the wrinkles and lines going upwards on her face. “Call me Rosalind.Oh a doctor with a such a lovely face. God bless you,” she gently clasped Elle’s hand and shook it in both of hers, as she did every single time. The old lady's mannerisms were so routine Elle could time it by the minute.

After finishing her check-up she packed her doctors bag and wandered into the hall, down the grand staircase. The crystal chandelier above her sparkled with gold from the afternoon light.

Elle stopped at the landing,the door to the Don’s meeting room was held slightlymore ajar than normal.

She overheard more than she intended to.

“When will we carry through with the plan?” The Don asked his guest who was sat on the opposite side of his shiny oak table.

She peeked in enough to see a thin man, tall, with jet black hair. She could only see his profile and the back of his head. Some of his right ear was chewed off. He was not as muscular built as Roberto. He spoke to the Don with deep frowns, and they brought their heads together conspiratorially.

“Tomorrow,” the thin man nodded.

“Everything is set?”

“It’ll be discreet, you won’t have to worry about those loan sharks anymore, leeching-“ 

At that moment, Roberto poked his head out of the meeting room. Elle went rigid all over and cleared her throat, feinting obliviousness. Roberto shut the door behind him as she gave her usual report. She’d done it so many times by now it was like a sixth sense;

“Blood pressure is stable, blood sugar is well within the target ranges. I’ll send the bloods to the lab and be back with them later this week. She’s having more trouble remembering recent events, I’ve increased her dosage of Nameda for now. Give it to her with her tea, she likes that. I’ll see if there’s any improvement the next time. Besides that, she’s almost finished her antibiotics course for the pneumonia, lungs are clear, there’s a bit of tummy upset from the meds but it’ll pass by tomorrow.”

He nodded and handed her the envelope of money. Elle took it silently, guilt-ridden as always.

“She also requested for books to be placed in her room, it may help her be more orientated,” she added, for the old woman’s sake.

“I’ll let him know,” he was half listening to her, brushing some lint of his slate grey suit. He put more value on grooming himself than any of her medical opinions. “The Don requests that you be on the alert for the next couple of weeks, for any emergencies.”

She lifted a brow uncertainly. _More sleepless nights. _“May I ask, what I should be expecting? So I have the equipment prepared?”

“You may not,” he replied curtly. ”Goodnight, Dr Storm.”

…

As she correctly predicated, she didn’t sleep well that night. She dreamt of her customized-Giacarlone ring tone going off, saw Roberto's cold, condescending stare. and kept tossing and turning. Her consciousness sat on the edge of it’s seat, ready to haul her out of bed to face whatever gory scene the Don needed her for. 

Running on low sleep, Elle was at the morgue the next day, spending her lunch break sorting through what essentials for an emergency; crepe bandages, syringes, extra yellow sharps bin, plenty of anaesthetic, septic wipes...the list was endless. She was careful not to take too many materials from the department or else it would be suspicious. She would need to ask Roberto for extra funds, she needed more supplies if she was to be prepared for any medical emergency thrown her way.

Elle stifled a yawn and decided she needed to take her mind off of things. She strolled into the office.

“I’ll be back in a bit, doc,” said Danny, getting up from his office chair. “I need to drop these off at the ballistics lab.”

“I’m headed that way to pick up some coffee I can drop you off." There was a surprised perk of his eyebrows. He didn't have a car, and she never offered him rides, so gratefully took it.

Thanks to Danny’s never-ending chatter, her mind was preoccupied for the entire journey;

“But you see doc, I’m trying to come to terms with why it didn’t work out,” he told her about his brief relationship with the pharmacist that ended with him being dumped. “She said I wasn’t observant enough of her needs, apparently I don’t listen,” he shrugged, it was really throwing him off.

She didn’t want to take sides, but honestly, Elle agreed with his ex. “You could be a better listener. Always room for improvement, right?”

He grimaced. “Is this because I didn’t listen to you warned me the tupperware of minestrone would be hot, and I ended up burning myself with hot soup?”

“Amongst many, many other things, Danny,” she chuckled. “Here we are.” She stopped the car to let him out.

“I’ll see you back there.” He closed the car door and waved goodbye, the ballistics samples in his other hand. 

She rolled down the window. “Hey, tie your shoe lace or you’ll trip.”

He looked at his shoes, and glanced over his shoulder to her, with a boyish smile, clearly not having learnt his lesson yet.

"Meh, I’ll do it later, what’s an untied shoelace going to do? Kill m-“

The sound of a firework erupted through the air, Danny was thrown onto the ground. Elle screamed and balled herself into her car seat to take cover as more shots followed.

Her ears were ringing and ringing, and it took her a second to realise when the shots had stopped. She slithered over the handbrake, staying low and opened the passenger door out onto the pavement.

Danny was on the ground, a bloody red stain forming in the centre of his abdomen.

Elle shrieked his name and scrambled out of the car, landing next to him on her bare knees.

He lifted his head to her, wincing in pain. “Oh Doc, ah holy fuck it hurts…”

She went into doctor mode, peering around to see if the threat was still there, her hands automatically clamping over the wound. In that millisecond, she saw him; the thin man with the chewed off right ear. Her heart skipped a beat, he disappeared further into the hysterical crowd that was running in all directions. It had to be the man who had the meeting with Don Giacarlone, it was unmistakable. He disappeared into a black car with tinted windows. She returned her attention to Danny, his blood hot on her palms. 

“Danny you’ll be okay.” Elle did a quick sweep of him with her eyes, “HELP! Call an ambulance!”

…

It had been three days since Danny was admitted to the hospital and underwent surgery.

The day that followed, Elle didn’t go to work in order to digest what happened, her bosses wouldn't even let her come back anyway until she took the proper time to recuperate. To be honest, she would have preferred to be kept busy in the morgue, yet as much as she griped at how annoying he was, work would not have been the same without Danny there to assist her. 

She couldn’t sleep either, not that that was anything new, but this time it was because she was concerned for someone else besides herself and her own safety. Her mind raced with hundreds of deadly possibilities; reasons he wouldn’t make it out of surgery, post operative complications that would end him. It drove her mad. 

Before she went to visit him on the third day, she made sure to put some concealer under her eyes to cover the dark rings, and to give her hair a proper wash. Danny would make a fuss that she wasn’t resting enough, despite the fact he was the one who had a bullet taken out of him. She combed through her jet back hair after it was dry and put on a grey sweater and slacks as she had to go to work after visiting him.

At the hospital, he was totally himself, greeting her with opens arms and smiling in glee at the flowers she brought him to join the many other gifts adorning his hospital room. Elle saw that Det. Grayson had already come by with his own gift basket. _He's never taken an interest in Danny ever since he started here, and now...?_ She kept her dour suspicions to herself, no use ruining Danny's upbeat mood, and he was the one in the hospital bed. 

Danny wore a hospital gown, there were medical adjuncts around him. His skin seemed a little dry from the AC, but overall, he was alert, calm, albeit a bit tired. He was questioning Elle about his temporary replacement assigned to her while he recovered;

“So what if she’s top 10 in her class, can Jen arrange the scalpel tray as well as I do? As meticulously as I do? That’s what I want to know,” he grumbled as Elle adjusted the pillow behind his head.

“Nope, I have to teach her the whole system again from top to bottom, but she still can’t get it right,” she replied with a wry grin. She didn’t want to be her usual rigid self for now, she was here as his friend, not his boss, Elle didn't have many friends to begin with. 

She sat down in the visitor chair, sighing long and hard; “Danny, I’m so sorry that this happened, I really am. You didn’t need to go to the ballistics lab so early in the week, I was the one who pushed you to go-“

“Doc, doc, please stop,” he patted the bed, shutting her up. “What are you sorry for? We both agreed the samples needed to be sent asap. More importantly, you saved me from some asshole who shot up that casino. Detroit is still Detroit, am I right?” He coughed and she got up to offer him a glass of water. He took a few quick sips, his face deep in thought. “Maybe our cops aren’t doing a good enough job to clear the streets of those bastards, for a stray bullet to get me.”

Elle swallowed nervously and took the glass from him. _Is it really the fault of the cops?_

_Or me?_

..

After the hospital she returned to the morgue.Her temp MA, Jen, was looking through the stack of gowns for her size. She had curly auburn hair and a pretty smile with the laugh to match it. 

“Do you only have blue gowns in stock?" She asked, looking a tad disappointed by it.

“It’s a standard colour for all medical-forensic departments, and I don’t think the bodies mind if our gowns don’t match our eyes.” Elle was not characteristically funny, unless she made a medical joke, which were apparently ‘never funny’ and ‘sets the bar for comedy low’ according to Danny.

Unsurprisingly, Jen wasn’t amused by her quip and finally chose a gown to wear.

Elle slipped her own gown on and adjusted her glasses when the bell for the outer reception rang.

“Go and see who it is and tell them to leave. I don’t like to be disturbed during autopsies,” she instructed her. In truth, she had too much on her plate, training a new MA was already more than her mental health could bear, thus her strict approach.

“Okay.”

When Elle emerged from the changing hall, Jen still hadn’t returned from shooing away their visitor.

Elle scowled and stalked out. The day had started late they were behind schedule at this point.

The reason for the delay became clearer when she spotted Grayson and Jen flirting, getting very close. Jen had her hand on his chin, gazing up at him with sultry eyes. Dick was a pretty boy by nature, and the entire scene made her want to gag.

When she entered Jen leapt as far away from Grayson as possible, _too late to hide anything. _

“Dr Storm— I was just informing the detective we’re doing an autop-“

“I’m sure that was all you were telling him,” she said bluntly. “Please get dressed Jen, we have a report to finish, we don’t have all day.”

“Sorry Doctor, right away,” she dashed past her out of the room. Elle breathed out deeply and looked to Dick, whom was obviously waiting for her. 

Grayson stuffed his hands in his pockets with a small smirk. "Are you always this formal with your assistants?”

She knew people around the station perceived her as an outcast; humourless, rigid, took everything far too seriously.

She folded her arms, lifting her chin. “I like formality.”

“Of course you do. Please don’t chew her head off for talking to me, I needed to confirm our dinner date.”

Elle couldn’t care less if her MA was dating a detective, she just wanted her work done thoroughly and on time. “Now that you’ve finished asking out my medical assistant, is there anything else? I have a cadaver that needs dissecting, and a very distraught family that needs answers.”

Dick sighed, Elle still hadn’t warmed up to him. _What does he expect? That we would become friends after one pleasant evening at a photo exhibit? Which he managed to ruin anyway by imploding my world, showing up here in his Nightwing suit. _

“I actually came to say I was sorry about Danny,” he leaned on the reception counter. She couldn’t help but remember when he clamped his hand over her mouth in a dark alley as Nightwing. But she knew now, there were more terrifying things to keep her up at night;

“They said you were there when it happened. It must have so difficult, your friend was hurt, and I know...I know what it's like to see-” he stopped and started, pressing his nose bridge, struggling to connect with her. "What I’m trying to say is; he’s alive because of you.”

“I just did my job until the ambulance came. I’ve been through worse. I’m just glad he’s alive and recovering well," she replied, flat and practised. Similar answers she gave families when she used to work in the ED. 

"Yes of course," he paused and observed her. "But... are you okay?" He tilted his head to her, her concealer must be doing a poor job.

Elle blushed and ran her finger under her eye, to hide it. "It's been a long week, what do you expect?" 

Guilt-ridden, he glanced down. "I haven't made it any easier, I'm sorry." 

They were quiet for a moment. In that instance, she realised she was being unfair. After all, besides Danny he was the only person who actually bothered to check in on her. She rubbed her lips together and said, more cordially.“Danny mentioned you dropped by with flowers and a giant chocolate Easter bunny, his absolute favourite. He loved it.”

He smiled faintly. “I’m happy to hear he liked it.”

She swore she would not speak about it with him anymore. She had made that clear, yet she had to know, she had to know if what she saw that day was real. Her palms were sweaty after clenching them for so long, _what do I have to lose? _

"Was it really the Giacarlones? They attacked that casino?" Her voice was low and nervous, as if Roberto would pop out of the corner to label her traitor.

If he was expecting her question, he didn't show it. “Yeah, it was,” he nodded solemnly.

The could feel the firing of nerves in her fingertips and prick of sweat on the back of her neck. She swallowed. "So why do you think they attacked? Were they after Danny, personally?"

"The shadiest thing Danny has ever done was pay his internet bill late. He may have just been caught in the fray, or it was a random hit to cover up their real targets. We're leaning towards the latter for now."

_'We' as in the precinct, or Nightwing, by himself? _"So, what are you doing to do about it?" 

"I haven't decided yet." 

Elle licked her lips and chose her next words carefully. "I don’t trust you, not completely, but for some reason you trust me. I think you could help me and stop them.”

His eyes shone brighter and he leaned a bit closer, listening intently. “Go on.”

“This by no means makes me 'okay' with whatever you are and whatever you do. Many health professionals would diagnose you with a plethora of psychological illnesses, and I am with them on that."

He cringed. "Ouch, but I think that's fair enough. I've heard this before, your opinions don't phase me," he shrugged noncommittally. "They certainly won't stop the problem we have right now."

"No, they won't," she agreed, relenting. 

"Where do we go from here?" 

"You will not implicate me in this, you take them down, and my name never gets associated with the Giacarlones, I was never their doctor, understood? I can share information, but that’s it.” She told him inflexible about the terms of their tentative understanding. “I won’t hurt anyone or poison anyone-“

“That won't happen. That’s not my style.”

“Whatever it is, I have my boundaries and limits. I need you to keep me informed every step of the way, if not, this won’t work, I mean it.” It was a lie that kept her apart from her family, kept them so distant from her she barely felt their presence in her life until the day they died. “I can’t stand anyone else lying to me, understood?”

He gave an affirmative nod, “loud and clear. I really am glad you've changed your mind. You're going against your beliefs, putting faith in me. I respect that, it's not easy." 

"I wouldn't call it faith just yet," said Elle, she only trusted him as far as she could throw him. "Before we settle on this; here's the term I need you to absolutely comply with for me to agree."

He leaned even closer, very serious. “Let’s hear it.”

“You need to get a chest x ray for the rib fractures from the other right.”

He frowned dubiously, “what?”

Elle picked up some papers and stacked them neatly. “I suspect you’ll sustain more injuries during the time period that we are working together so if I request for you to undergo any medical tests you have to. I will gladly pay for them if it's money you're concerned about." 

He looked at her like she asked him to jump off a cliff; “Doc, they’re not necessary, it's-“

“If you don’t comply to this, it_ definitely _won’t work,” she told him firmly with no room for argument. “I won’t have you give up the ghost on my watch, Grayson. I need to make sure you’re okay, too. Deal?”

He relented, sighing. “Okay, I can work with that,” he shot her a small smile. “Thanks for your concern, I'm touched." 

_He can save the smiles for his date with Jen. We have a long way to go. _"There's plenty more we need to discuss but I need to head back in soon. I can tell you this to start off with." Elle peeked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. “I know who shot Danny.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello everyone, thank you for stopping by and being so patient. I am well, in fact I just graduated from uni, Hahah, it has been so stressful the last couple of months with the pandemic and trying to finish this degree I've been working for six years on, but I'm safe and so are my family.**

**Anywayyssss enough about me, hope y'all are well, onto the chapter! Apologise for an grammatical errors, I have no beta. **

* * *

Four nights in a row, her Giacarlone ring tone went off. Any sleep she did manage to get was not restful. She floated in the blackness between sleep and wakefulness, her body poised to spring like jack-in-a-box to a warning sound blaring through her large, empty home.

The injuries she treated escalated in severity. The first night were a plethora of ankle sprains and shoulder dislocations. The second night, another long bone fracture. She mustered the courage against Roberto’s cold, deadly glare, and made her case to send the henchman to the emergency department before he lost the leg. He listened to her that night, hoped he would continue to respect her opinion in the nights to come.

The days and nights smeared into one another. If she wasn’t there in person, her mind was, as she mentally prepared herself for the evening and the mafia patients she would revisit. She would think of the cries of men at the sting of anti-septic she painted onto their wounds, the crusted blood and serum she chipped away.

The adrenaline and fear bolstered her through it, but it stripped her to a dirtied, sweaty, rag at the end. Trudging home she would shut her eyes for a sacred, untouched, hour of sleep while the sky outside lightened. Then her alarm for work would ring, thrusting her out of her warm bed once more.

The increasing trend in emergency calls was due to her little agreement with Dick Grayson’s alter ego Nightwing. She did not expect her Italian mafia problem to disappear overnight. But she certainly did not anticipate what a toll it was going to take on her well-being. Her tips to him meant he was out fighting the men she inevitably had to patch up. It was a vicious cycle. For now, it felt like a lose- lose situation for her since he hadn’t made much of dent to their operations, just yet.

The last word anyone would use to describe Elle would be an optimist. She had plenty of practice during medical school pretending to be an optimist; to reassure patients, and their family members of the course of a disease, their prognosis, her certainty in the evidence that the treatment they required worked.

Her situation right now had no clinical studies, no certainty, besides the fact she would wind up a corpse if she went to the cops (if she could figure out who was not on their payroll). Thus, there was no reasonable outcome she could predict. Yet, she remained uncharacteristically hopeful (or a reckless idiot) and put her faith in Dick Grayson, because she had no other options. She had to reassure herself he would follow through with his promise to help her end this.

She came to work on time, running on less than 2 hours of sleep. She fixed her hair into a neat bun, a few stands were out of place but she could live it with, and extra concealer under her eyes masked her tiredness. Elle was always put-together no matter the number of hours of sleep she got. Everything seemed to run smoothly for her— until she spilled coffee on the floor and wanted to scream.

Elle sighed, long and slow to calm her temper. She yanked some tissues to deal with the mess. Danny usually maintained the upkeep and administration of the office, but now she had to deal with it too. She wished he was here, someone familiar she could rely on. 

“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Jen scrambling into the office. Elle peered at the clock, she was ten minutes late.

“Long night?” Elle remarked, irritable, noting she wore the same outfit as yesterday. _Jeez, Grayson manages to take this girl on a date, go after the Giacarlones and have sex with her- all in one night? The endurance…_

“Sort of,” she shrugged noncommittally.

It was very early in the morning and she hated toting out remarks on professionalism to colleagues below her in that hierarchy, but Danny was as much a disorganised mess as Jen was when he first started out. “They don’t tolerate more than three late punch in’s in this office,” she informed her stoically. “Just make a note of that. You cannot rely on smarts alone in this field, professionalism is just as important.”

The directness of her tone threw Jen off, her jaw tightened and she looked prepared to form a comeback but she stifled it and grabbed a pair of scrubs shuffling towards the changing rooms. Elle sighed wearily, berating herself; _great start to the day, Elle. This is why you don't have friends. _

…

The intricacies of a cadaver always summoned unknown stores of energy within her. There were stories in the healed flesh of the old, puckered, white scars. Even the slightest difference in muscle bulk between two palms spoke volumes to her. She would trace the maps of bruises, studying them, so they might bring her along in the journey of how they came to be. She had once described this to Danny trying to gauge if he had a poetic side, but he'd called her creepy for her pontifications on forensic science. 

Jen was not as enthusiastic either, and left fifteen minutes before lunch break, rushing to meet Grayson. She spritzed perfume to smother the scent of latex, hand sanitiser, and iodine that sunk into their skin after hours in scrubs. Elle took a whiff of her own arm. Anyone could agree it was not sexy to smell like a morgue.

_Oh to be infatuated with someone. _It had been a while since her heart fluttered with the dizzying possibility of love. Her last real boyfriend had been before her family died, a boy from medical school, he was ambitious, clever, and pragmatic -elements she enjoyed in a man. He did have an abrasive sense of humour which had never sat well with her, but she loved him and she thought he loved her...evidently not enough to stick around when the news broke out about her family. The heartbreak and grief compounded on each other that she couldn't even get out of bed for weeks, the entire world was grey and bleak, the torture of living in it just didn't seem worth the fight anymore. Once she did pull herself back up- because of course she'd have to do it herself since no one else would- she refused to give her heart so easily to someone like that ever again. Besides, she had no time for that now. Now her heart hammered away with nauseating stress in the wee hours of the morning, reducing a broken arm or leg, patting the sweaty forehead of a mafia henchman as if she were their mothers. She rubbed her temple and headed to the changing rooms. She shook her head. Elle hated being jealous, hated the bitter taste of it at the back of her mouth, it did not good to spend her energy on such emotions.

She changed into pencil skirt and blouse, wearing a white coat over it, a piece of pristine, shining armour that set her aside from the policemen that wandered through.

She ate her lunch, she chewed slowly as if she'd had wisdom teeth pulled out but really is was tiredness. She decided she had no appetite. Instead she sat next to a cadaver and recorded it’s details into a tablet, letting the thoughts of the past be shoved aside.

“Knock, knock.”

Light on his feet, she did not hear Detective Grayson close the entrance door behind him when he arrived.

She peered at him disinterested. “Your girlfriend left the morgue looking for you.”

“I came to see you,” he said with a half-smile, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Jen must enjoy those bright, smiles. The fluorescent lights of the morgue flattered him, where it would have made anyone else’s complexion dull and grey.

“None of the cases today are related to our arrangement.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I came to say hello.”

Her irritableness flared again. “We don’t need to make small talk Grayson. I don’t enjoy it and I’m not very good at it.” That was impolite. She didn’t know what had come over her, but she didn’t like it, her lack of sleep was souring every interaction she had. But Grayson paid no mind to her bluntness. 

“Oh no.” He lightly punched the air, as if he just missed a train. “And I was so looking forward to hearing your opinion of the weather today.”

Her eyes flicked up to him, back to the tablet. “I’m busy.”

“This energy radiating off of you is colder than what’s in those fridges.” She stopped typing and glared at him. He turned his palms out, a wry smile. “Kidding.”

“Could you get to your point?”

“I would but Malley is about to walk in.”

On cue, Detective Malley strolled in. “Captain said you have something for me Doctor?” He asked, scratching his shiny bald head. The stress of the job unkind to his hair follicles.

“Yes.” Elle ignored Grayson, uncovering a cadaver behind her. “This one.”

“We already had this conversation this morning,” he gave a huff of exasperation, as if he had a hundred better places to be. “Based on the spiculated splatter on the wall, he grabbed the lamp and chucked it at our victim before he finished her off.”

“But with which arm?”

He snorted and glanced at Detective Grayson, as if to say, ‘get a load of his crap,’. She secretly enjoyed watching Grayson remain stone-faced, checking his phone.

“Does that matter?” Asked Malley. “You called me down here to be pedantic for no reason?”

“It does matter, as I want to close the case as soon as possible.” She was unbothered by his reaction and charged on. “Despite how marred his body was after the car accident. You can see the surgical scars on his right arm. He had a shoulder injury, anterior dislocation after a rock climbing incident, if you read his hospitals records. You know, the ones I sent to you days ago,” she reminded, not caring if she sounded smug, she loved proving she was right. Some days it was the only thing she looked forward to; explaining her detailed findings to blank-faced detectives who wanted her to stop showing off and get to the point. “You said the killer picked up the lamp with their right hand and threw it, he couldn’t have managed that after this surgery. He’s even lost muscle bulk over his deltoid post-op,” she indicated to the muscle planes of both arms. “The lamp was vintage brass from the 40s. I’m not sure if you’ve lifted anything in the past year yourself, but they are quite heavy.”

The insult landed it’s blow, and his features contorted to control the angry spasm.

“Even if he did the crime, the position he was standing in wouldn’t have caused that thick blood spray on the wall behind the victim.”

He scratched his neck, his face pinched with annoyance. “You think the killer is still out there?”

“Yes,” she closed the body up. “Try the girlfriend he was cheating on his wife with.”

He had no clever come back, but pursed his lips petulantly. “Thank you for your elaborate explanation. I’ll speak to the Captain about it.”

“I already told him, that’s why he asked you to see me.” The Captain said more regarding his incompetence but she didn’t need to rub salt in the wound.

He scoffed, eyes narrowed at her witheringly. “Always know how to brighten up my day don’t you, Storm?”

Malley left, grumbling curses under his breathe.

When she was alone with Grayson, Elle noticed he was staring at her, “what?”

There was a faint, amused, smile on his lips. “That was amazing.” He seemed to look at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, or was she just imaging up things in her head?

Her cheeks were warm, _stop it, Elle, you have no business blushing about Dick Grayson of all people_.

“Thanks.” She busied herself with covering the cadaver and pushing a tray aside that did not need further rearranging, but her nervousness was spiking again. 

“You like being right, don’t you?”

“I like being right about things I’m good at.” She turned to him, she did have a competitive spirit, she couldn’t help it. “My mother once said that doctors only know medicine. They may pretend to know everything, but in reality know nothing of the rest of the world.” It was strange to say ‘my mother,’ after pretending for so long she never had one. His face did not scrunch with revulsion or stiffen like a plank like Danny’s did when Elle brought up her parents. But Grayson was not normal, evil parents were not a taboo or far-fetched concept for him.

“Humble and wise,” he said an stepped to her. “There’s actually a legitimate reason I came to see you.”

…

Half of his shirt was off as Elle examined a puncture wound on his upper chest. He sat on a stool in the middle of the supply closet. The pair of them shoved together in this small space, the thought of the implications of someone finding them there like this, made her flush. It also made her feel ridiculous for such a thought to enter her mind. God forbid, Jen decide to walk in, that would be hell.

His injury came from being into thrown into a tangle of barbed wire.The wire had snaked into his skin, perilously close to the plexus of nerves on the left of his neck.

She made a disapproving click of her tongue as she slapped gloves on. “You could have paralysed your arm, you realise that?”

“Oh, really?” He muttered uninterested, as if she’d given him a boring weather update.

“Yes!” She snapped, his eyebrow flicked up and Elle blinked at him, stunned with herself. From a young age Elle was a master of her emotions, but Dick’s casual reaction to her warnings pissed her off nonsensically.

This was life and death. It baffled her that the rest of the population was constantly battling disease, trauma, and the reptilian health insurance agencies that stripped them to bones as they committed their entire lives to living longer. Yet here he was, adding another scar to the collection marring his perfectly able body.

She gave a heavy huff, cleaning away dried blood. Her voice was low, firm. “Don’t even think about throwing punches or doing back-flips.”

“Left the back flips in my Robin days,” he said with an infuriating smirk.

“I’m serious." 

"I know you are."

"You wouldn’t even be able to pick up a cup if it severed those nerves.”

“Then I’m lucky it didn’t.”

_“Fine,”_ she said tersely with finality.

He exhaled long and steady, his shoulder lifting beneath her touch. He angled his head to her a fraction, the burn of his gaze on her cheek.

“Come on, doc,” he drawled out the last syllable like a whiny child after a scolding. _He’s probably sick of dealing with my foul mood, _but Elle was too tired to care, not that he took any notice it, so much for the expert detective he claimed to be.

“You said your fancy suit was invincible, but it couldn’t protect you against this?"

“I never said that. I’m only human, aren’t I? I can’t be perfect,” he quipped assuredly, like he had the answer to everything.

“Your trusty friend ibuprofen did not do the trick?”

His face went flat and he rolled his eyes. “I got the x- ray done as per our agreement. I sent the report to you.”

Elle stifled a yawn and replaced the bandage with a new one. The only reason he came to her was because he couldn’t fix it himself. Otherwise, he would’ve handled the injury on his own, without her reproachful eye.

“Perhaps you should ask your radiologist for a 2 for one discount, you might need another one.” She leaned close to his neck, he smelt of aftershave and old cigarettes which came from being stuck in a car with his chain-smoking partner. She checked the chemical burn from the phosphorus, the wound was sticky and pink, clear serum oozing from it. Healthy. Satisfied, she circled to stand in front of him. They were less than two feet apart, his head level with her chest inside the supply closet. He tilted his chin up.

“How does it feel now?”

“Still tender,” his opposite hand pressed the shoulder. “But much better,” he smiled wider, “I’m in expert hands, after all.”

Ignoring him she gave instructions. “Follow my movements.” She outstretched her arms as if to stop a bus, then extended her wrists. He followed. She pointed her thumbs to the sky, he followed that too.

“This is weird.” He stared up at her, curious, she saw it from the periphery while she focused on the examination.

“I’m just making sure.”

“How am I doing, Doc?” He asked on the last movement.

“You’ll need surgery, might lose the arm,” she deadpanned.

He snorted. “Aha, medical jokes, huh?”

She titled her head, regarding him. “Dare I ask, if you broke anything else?”

His shirt hung loosely over his good shoulder, he tilted his head to mimic her, a glint to his eye. “If I told you. We’d be here all day.”

Elle rolled her eyes and bent to retrieve the first aid kid. As she did, her eyes moved at light-speed scanning his torso. Most of his scares were thin, healed, some wider than the others, or nastier. A particularly gruesome one was near his bellybutton twisting like a hook, and she was fixated on it. _How could the human body withstand it? this pain? The constant injury? _

When she straightened, he'd caught her staring. 

“You’re wondering if they’re torture marks,” he was unperturbed, as if she hadn’t oogled him from head to toe.

She blinked at him, taken aback, _did I say it out loud?_

“Your brows knit, and your eyes become distant when a new thought crosses your mind,” he waved a finger in her direction, “and your mouth opens ever-so-slightly. It’s not hard to put two and two together.”

She as exposed as a fresh wound. Had he always watched her? Scrutinising the morphology of her facial expressions and taking notes? The range of emotions she showed the world, was limited, blunted even, but he’d parsed it out.

She was both impressed and very annoyed.

“It was a machete— cliche, I know,” he said, as if that was a boring lesson from Torture 101 they cumbersomely _needed_ to know.

“Yes it appears quite deep, reckless, hypertrophied in the jagged pattern of the wound.”

“They weren’t cutting me intending to leave a cosmetic-scar behind, that’s for sure," he snorted humourlessly. "But it was unclean, nearly went into septic shock when all was said and done.”

Elle pictured him, face twisting with agony, begging for his life as a unnamed villain tried to carve his guts out.

“And you didn’t surrender?” She asked, genuinely curious.

“No,” he said, a cloud of darkness briefly passing his eyes, and buttoned up his shirt. “He wanted to kill my friends. I stopped him and the bomb.”

His tone was stoic, he didn’t tell her to gloat.

“Admirable,” she crossed her arms over her chest, she knew when credit was due. Perhaps it wasn’t that difficult to comprehend for a rationalistic mind like Elle’s; he took great satisfaction in being a ‘hero,’ no matter the cost to his own life.

He bit his lower lip, the corner of it turned up wryly, grey eyes lighting up. “Hm, finally something I do that you approve of.”

She didn't dignify this with a response, instead resting the kit on a shelf and arranging it, even though it was pristine to begin with thanks to her beloved motto of 'clean-as-you-go." The supply closet was stifling, especially with them inside and in such close proximity. It was time to go. She turned the door handle, checking that the coast was clear before they exited.

The shock of the cold AC in the morgue shuttered her eyes close for a second too long, her balance wavered.

Dick caught her elbow with a startled expression.

“Whoa,” he angled his head to take a proper look at her. “What’s the matter?”

She clutched her head, she was so tired she was falling asleep standing up. “Nothing, I’m alright, I’m just-“ _tired _she almost said, but refrained from it. _You _are _fine, _she tried to convince herself, convince Grayson, _you will be fine, Elle, you’re fine, you’ve pulled all-nighters, gruelling on calls in the past, this is nothing. This is nothing. _The toxicity of her mantra of denial circled in her mind. She wanted to politely tell him she was busy, that he needed to leave, it was plausible enough.

But put two and two together, and the weight of his concern was too much.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” His forehead creased with worry.

She was acutely aware of the pressure of his palm holding her elbow, she glanced at it, and he abruptly let go. She thought she could shoo him away with excuses, but he was starting to hover, and she knew he would not leave so easily.

Elle self-consciously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, how she hated the pity. If it wasn’t scorn from absolute strangers, it was the looks of sympathy from the distant relatives and work colleagues. All an act, they said ‘sorry for your loss’ and offered a shoulder to cry on, but kept her at arms length. Or they did it to hide their initial mistrust of her, before they realised she was harmless. Elle did her job well, she did not want to be well-liked, she made it her mission to stay out of everyone’s way, to fade into the white noise, and it worked. No one bothered her.

Until now.

Her throat was dry as she swallowed and leaned her hip against her desk. “Are the dark circles ghastly?”

“So that’s a no,” said Grayson testily. _What on earth is _he _getting irked for? _

“What do you expect?” She crossed her arms. “Guess who they call after Nightwing attacks?”

“They call you,” he wiped his palm over his face, the guilt plainly written over it, a new look for someone she was used to viewing as an arrogant prick. “Shit. I’m so sorry doc.”

She sat down, feeling the release in her spine when she did. No use pretending. “I hope you’re making progress.”

“Your lead was perfect. You were right, the Don was after loan sharks. The man who shot Danny is a fixer for the Giacarlones, but he’s mostly independent. I guess after I broke the arm of his right hand man, they’ve had to rely on external muscle.” He shrugged with that careless ease that must’ve come naturally for him, so aloof about such a violent act.

“You did quite a number on Roberto’s arm,” she said choosing her words wisely, “it took much longer than he anticipated for it heal. I don’t think he can open his fist yet.”

He raised a brow. “And that’s a bad thing?”

That clearly rubbed her the wrong way, suddenly she couldn’t look at him.

“Sorry,” he muttered, softer, sensing her disquiet. At least he had the decency for that. “Roberto, that’s his name?”

She recognised the lightbulb moment go off, and she shook her head adamantly.

“No. Don’t go after him.”

He was confused. “But he’s the Don’s right hand man, he’s key-“

“I report to him for everything,” she said, standing quickly that he took a step back form her as panic made her stomach curl. “He’ll know it was me who snitched. Don’t.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t, don’t worry,” he said gently, his palms up, his features softening, he didn’t argue with her further over it, thankfully. “We’ll find another way.”

She returned to her seat and sighed, closing her eyes, _you wanted this, you put your trust in him. _However, part of her didn’t trust him, didn’t trust that what he was doing was going to work. He was a variable she could not predict the outcome of_. _Her therapist had instructed her to focus on her breathe when life got overwhelming, when there were things she couldn’t control. For someone who planned out her day with a surgeons precision, it was a great feat to relinquish that control. But she had to try.

_Inhale, exhale, it will work out, it will. _

“Now I’ll write you a prescription for twenty hours of sleep, as you deserve, my orders.” He scribbled on a post-It and handed it to her, a comically serious look on his face that even Elle chuckled. She must be losing her mind with exhaustion if he wrought a small laugh out of her. She could see why Jen liked him, if this was all she had to see; the handsome detective sworn to protect the innocent, ‘great with kids’, this endearing playfulness. His expression brightened and this loosened the tension around them.

She peered at the ‘prescription.’ “Twenty hours? That’s a bit much.”

“You need time off too. Not everyday is a day to attack them. A lot of it is waiting around and recon too.”

Unfortunately for her, she got the vigilante side too. “Huh, so that means you’re taking an evening off as well?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and gave an offhand shrug. “It’s not unheard of, we’ve got to give the bad guys time to recoup so I can get them again. Plus I have dinner plans with Jen, and it would be rude of me to blow her off again.”

For some inane reason this made her smirk, she felt like a crone cheering on the early twenties kids and their exciting dating life. “And will she be late again tomorrow?”

“Well…if you sleep in, perhaps you’ll both be late,” he threw her a boyish smirk.

He went closer, placed a hand on the edge of the desk and knelt to her like she was a child in the yard, and he was patching a scrape on her knee. Their eyes met, dark brown on grey. It startled her, how gentle and sincere he could be when he wanted to;

“I know it’s uncomfortable for you, to help me, what with your personal opinions of what I do.”

She was coming to terms with it. Crazier things have happened. “Autonomy exists for a reason, your body is your body.”

He gave an appraising ‘hm’ and smiled. “A pillar of medical ethics, aren’t you?” He took out a box from his inner pocket. “Here.” He handed her a new phone, still in it’s plastic wrap. “To replace the one I wrecked, don’t be modest and say ‘I shouldn’t have,’” he added, taking the words right out of her mouth. “To be fair, I really _should _have days ago, it’s not the same colour but I hope you like it. I’m sorry for destroying your old one.”

She was not expecting it, the past few days had been such a rush she’d forgotten about it. “Thank you.”

“Thank _you, _doc,” he said earnestly, his gaze sweeping over her once more, and stood up, saying goodbye.

She stared at the box unwrapping it and checking the phone inside; shiny and new. She may hate everyone’s pity, but she realised how long it had been since she took comfort in someone’s kindness. Truthfully, she yearned it, even if it came from such an unlikely source as Dick Grayson. He was so genuine, like he wanted what was best for her. Could they be friends? In the most unexpected way? Could—

…her thoughts skidded to a halt. _Don’t be foolish Elle. _She remembered the context of why she needed a new phone, how he’d pulled her shirt to him and the primal growl he made, how frightened she had been, the cold chill down her spine. The bones she heard crack when he beat those henchman to a pulp. How many arms and legs had she reset in the darkness of the night? Blood-soaked gauzes she’d tossed? Wails of pain she had lessened with vials of morphine? All because of what Nightwing-Dick Grayson-had done to them? How could she forget? _Random kind gesture...or a simple repayment, masked with cleverly chosen words to butter me up? _They were very different. She told herself not to get swept up in his dazzling charm and smile like everyone else did. Looks could be deceiving, and no doubt he's used his to get his way plenty of times, even for the so-called greater good.

_He spun lies to everyone around him, why would he exclude you from that list? Why would _you _special?_

_There is responsibility and power in being a doctor, Elle, _her mother once told her, _once in a while unsavoury people will come to you and ask the world of you, they will prey on your kinder attributes for a yes, but you must learn when to say no. _

For fear of her life, she said yes to the the Giacarlones. As for Grayson, she was a means to an end, to his goal. Out of consequence, that was what he was to her too, nothing more.

Elle set the phone aside, she had a perfectly functioning back-up she was using anyway. She had half an hour before lunch break ended. She leaned her head on her desk, closed her eyes, breathed in the memories of happier times to help her get a well-deserved nap.

* * *

_Dick _

It was a risk to involve her. He knew it. Yet he still took it.

Mafiosos typically went for private doctors that were male, discreet, ancient, and unflinchingly took the money, their conscience undisturbed.

_Rotten to the core, every single one of them. _

When he’d figured it out: that the prim and proper, square of a medical examiner he paid no attention to until two weeks ago—was working for one of the most dangerous mafia crime lords in the city- it frankly took him by surprise. He tried to consider other possibilities, that they were holding her family hostage, that she was paying off a blood debt to them. It was none of these. She had no family, no debt to the Giacarlones. She pocketed and banked in the money they gave her, every single time, _as equally rotten as the stereotypical mob doctor I’m familiar with_.

She did not appear nefarious on the outside; being more concerned with scuff marks on her shoes and the organisation of the morgue equipment than rubbing shoulders with the Don.

Despite the fact she kept the blood money they gave her, she was harmless, her records squeaky clean. He wanted to approach her. She seemed guarded, but pliant. The stain on her family reputation did give him pause. He knew them, the notorious Storms, a trio of mad scientists-a couple and their eldest daughter- that died a couple of years ago. They were scorned worldwide after aiding the Injustice League in their terrorist attack.

Dick had been there, as well as the other Titans, the day of the attack. He was still of two minds about whether this was something he needed to share with Elle but he held his tongue. There no use digging up painful memories for her. Any rational, sane person would’ve walked the other way from Dr Elle Storm, their youngest child they’d left behind, whom was spared from the family business. The Titans would have told him to forget it, that he was being reckless, that he had to find another contact close to the Giacarlones, someone with a guilty conscience they could terrorise the truth out of.

But he didn’t stay away. If he went on believing that everyone became their parents, he’d be a hypocrite.

Besides, the opinion of the Titans did not matter. They were long gone, save for a sporadic text or phone call. Rachel and Garth off to college, Kori on her glamorous escapades between Tamaran and Europe, Superboy traversing the galaxy with Super-man. Hank and Dawn in well-deserved peace on a ranch in the Midwest with their daughter. After their last mission together, they needed space and disbanded. It was his call and no one objected. They’d ran their natural course, and he saw no reason to continue beating a dying horse. There were more names and members added to the core team in the years they were active. Every single one of them etched into his heart, but some stories he couldn’t ponder on for too long without guilt devouring him from inside out.

He stopped at a traffic light and peered at the noon sky, dull with matted rain clouds. He wondered if the doctor had truly gotten any sleep since he last saw her around two days ago. His first tactic; taking her to that photography show held by her favourite artist, slowly gaining her trust through friendship, doing it the way Dick Grayson would have done it before--totally fell through the night he was doused in toxic chemicals. He did not see the point of wasting her time with slow manipulation. _Like Batman would have._

He did not want this to be another Jericho, for the truth to blow her life up like it did that poor boy’s. _Killed him_. It was best to spare her from that fate, and keep her at arms length.

_It’s better this way, _he told himself everyday. _I have to be better. _

Yet when he caught her as she swayed with exhaustion after she flawlessly patched him up, the guilt gnawed at him again. It bothered him because she was inherently a good person, honest, innocent, even if she was misguided. She mostly went about her days alone. He had keen experience with that isolation too, distancing himself from his friends and family, because he felt their lives were better off without him. He’d been an asshole to her before—but not being an asshole wasn’t making her life any better. He didn't know what else to do. 

Once he arrived at work he damped down his misgivings and focused. Dick passed the windows looking into the breakroom spotting Dr Storm on one end and Jen at the other. He went to her.

Jen was far removed from his life as Nightwing, as he wanted her to be. A slice of normal he vowed he would try, indulge in, just this once. He’d gone out with girls whom were not in the hero business in the past, but never beyond a one night stand. He thought this would be just that, but after two amazing dates, and sleeping together. He thought, _why not? _He had not had a serious girlfriend in a while, why shouldn’t it be someone from work that he liked being around? _That’s what normal people do.. right? _

She was sweet, smart, and feisty. He was also a sucker for red-heads. The colour of her hair reminded him of autumn, it was brilliant and glossy in the sunlight, and smelt of lilies. She did have a short temper, which he wasn’t a fan of, but he could find a compromise in that, for he didn’t eagerly volunteer his opinion and tidbits of his life as she did, but she could converse enough for both of them. She did not know about Nightwing, how could he share that without freaking her out and pushing her away? But did it make what they had any less real?

Some people had to be sacred. He had to protect her from the truth.

Dick pulled a chair out for himself and kissed her cheek, she didn’t gush at the greeting, just kept glowering at her boss. “She just walks around like she has stick up her ass. don’t you think?” Said Jen, stabbing at her fruit salad.

“I don’t think so.”

Dr Storm was out of ear shot, seated alone, eating her packed lunch and listening to an audiobook with earphones in. It was amusing to see her stare off into space as if she was having a vision, watch her eyes widen at whatever the narrator read.

_Probably something complex and incredibly dull. _

“What?” Jen was puzzled. “She talks to you like you’re a piece of shit, you can only imagine how she talks to me when I’m alone with her in the morgue. I’m worried she’ll stab me one day for misplacing a pen.”

“I don’t think she has it in her.” Bruce-and Dick- were both perfectionists in that sense, particular about the layout of their work spaces and how they are run. “People can be overly neurotic because it gives them a sense of control, means they’re always on edge, and they tend to let it out on others, which they dislike about themselves, and they-”

He regretted feeding her those words. “Yeah you’re right, that’s what she is, a control freak!” She waved her fork at him. “But I swear I thought she was going to hyperventilate because of a crease in her blouse. She spends two hundred dollars on one of these boring shirts. She's constantly getting on my ass about being late, and it's only by a few minutes, it's not like the bodies are gonna run away! I am good at what I do! And you know what? The other day…”

Elle's gaze brushed over his, her face lit up, then tightened. She made an exaggerated turn of her head, pretending not to see him, he stifled a laugh. She had a nervous disposition, especially around new people, but when it came to doing what she was good at, she was confident and efficient. He remembered her eyebrows pinched with concentration the night he revealed his identity to her, as she ordered him around the lab and calmly sutured him. He anticipated a bundle of nerves he needed to settle down and convince to help him. He was never more glad to be wrong.

The doctor kept her gaze on a spot on the floor, whatever it took not to see him and headed for the coffee machine. _Does she know she's not being subtle at all? _

“She’s cool,” he announced, derailing Jen’s rant, which he had no been listening to for a while now.

“Huh?”

“I said she’s cool,” he repeated. She frowned at him. “Give her a shot. Danny seems to think she’s ok.”

“He’s half in love with her, and he’ll ramble to anyone who gives him their undivided attention. Plus, I’m not even talking about her anymore,” said Jen, getting irked. “Were you even listening to me?”

“Sorry, I got to go, I need coffee to wake up,” he stood. He hated the taste of the precinct coffee but he did not have time to make his own at home this morning. His own fault after spending the night at Jen’s. “I need to head to my desk after. I’ll see you later.”

“Hey,” he approached her as she waited for pot to finish brewing.

“Hello, Detective Grayson. Would you like coffee, too?” She greeted him, handled herself with perfect politesse. He felt brash with his ‘hey’.

“Yes,” he grabbed a styrofoam cup for himself. “Thank you,” he said as she poured some black coffee for him, sometimes talking to her had the formality of conversing with his prep-school principal. He peered down at her, she was much shorter than him or Jen. Elle's face was heart-shaped with full cheeks, and black hair. Her brows were soft, nose flat, shoulders sloped elegantly, not a hair out of place from her coifed bun and delicate pearl earrings on her ears. She smelt faintly of the morgue chemicals, it’s sterile equipment, which Jen concealed more skilfully with layers of perfume. In particular, he took in her eyes, the makeup she used to cover dark circles, never worked, but she was visibly more rested just by her posture alone.

“How do you feel?

“Better. Thanks.” She didn’t smile. She rarely did. Even during the evening at the photo exhibition he had to start and continue the conversation. Otherwise they would have stood next to one another in awkward silence the entire time. Dick used to have a serious, brooding manner before he reformed the Titans, after Jericho-but somehow her stoicism trumped his, it could even compete with Batman’s.

But he’s seen it crack, like the surface of a frozen lake. Her laugh didn't have a dainty, musical quality to it, like he expected, it was belly-deep, smooth and low, suited her. He even noticed dimples in her cheeks. 

“Can we speak somewhere private?”

She accompanied him down the hall. “How do you do it?” She asked, intrigue in her tone. 

“Do what?”

“Maintain a social life, despite leading a hectic double life," she said. “I realise we are the same in that context. Surely the logistics of it must be exhausting to manage and there are only so many hours in the day. Healthy adults need seven to eight hours of sleep, within twenty-four hours thats around thirty percent, and if you divide the rest of the hours between meals, travel, work, it's nearly impossible. Imaging if someone has difficulty going to sleep, no matter how meticulous or pristine their sleep hygiene is-"

The fact that she was rambling was a good sign, although most times she spoke too quick for him to catch up or even pretend to know what she was going on about.

“It’s not as easy as it appears, trust me," he interrupts her as they exit into the carpark behind the precinct. 

"What did you need to speak with me about?" 

He thinks about his drive today, the thoughts and guilt that plagued him and considers telling her then, _'I'm sorry doctor, but your parents, on that day, I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how-" _

He shakes his head slightly, and rummages around in his pocket. If she knew it would ruin this arrangement. She'd been helpful thus far and he needed to maintain that trust, even if the facade of it was fragile. _You're still an asshole, no matter how hard you try not to be. _

He presents her with a small chip. 

“This is a listening device. Can you get it into the Don’s office?”

“Have you lost your mind?" She nearly shrieks. "No, absolutely not," she says vehemently. "He’s always in there, and it’s manned. Surely you have tech that can listen to him from the outside?" 

"His office has security measures in place. This can help me hack them and scramble them.”

She cuts her arms through the air in refusal. “I can’t.”

“The Giacarlones have the most ties to the city council, they aren’t going to be easy to take down with wrecking supply chains and casinos, we need more incriminating evidence," he argues.

She pointed a finger at the device disdainfully. “How is this supposed to hold up in a court? Have you considered that?”

“Let me figure that out.”

Elle folded her arms. “If they catch me, I’ll be dead," she said quietly a chill in the air. 

“We will plan this out. You and me, every step of your visit, it may take a few days or a few weeks, but we will plan it out, so there will be less people at the mansion and you won't get caught," he assured her in his most firm, confident voice, but she was not quite convinced. “There are two bugs. One placed outside which I can tap in to move the security cameras installed. He doesn’t have any at the entry way of his office, or inside, just at the stairwell, like you said, right?" 

She nodded. 

"Alright, you can go in and plant the other one without getting caught by the cameras when I have moved them." 

She huffs, hugging herself tighter. "I am not capable of being stealthy, that's your job." 

"This will move things along faster, isn't that what we both want? They shot Danny, you and I both want to see them taken down for that." 

Her eyes shift away from him as she rubbed her lips together in contemplation. 

"Fine," she agreed, meeting his gaze, "but this plan better be airtight, Grayson." 


End file.
